National and State Leaders to Discuss Solution to Rx Epidemic at HUMC

10/22/2013

For Immediate Release: October 23, 2013

Contact: Angela Conover, Media Director, PDFNJ

               Conover@drugfreenj.org

               201-916-1030 (c)

 

HACKENSACK--- Physicians from across New Jersey will gather with national and state leaders at Hackensack University Medical Center to discuss solutions to the epidemic of prescription drug abuse at the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey’s (PDFNJ) Do No Harm Symposium.

The event will be held on October 30, 2013 beginning at 8 am, at the Hackensack University Medical Center John Theurer Cancer Center 92 Second Street, Hackensack, NJ. Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) , and Medical Society of New Jersey will lead the discussion.

Angelo M. Valente, executive director of PDFNJ, explained, “with prescription drug abuse at catastrophic levels in our state, it is time that leaders from the entire spectrum of professions facing this issue come together to find solutions.”

According to Do No Harm speaker Dr. Christopher Jones, PharmD, from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), by 2010, drug overdose deaths outnumbered motor vehicle traffic deaths in 31 states, including New Jersey.

“The proliferation of opioid medications throughout the United States over the past decade has been met with a corresponding increase in both drug overdose deaths (tripling from 1990 to 2008) and a five-fold increase in treatment admissions (2000 to 2010),” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Do No Harm is supported by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program and the Drug Enforcement Administration-New Jersey, in conjunction with the Medical Society of New Jersey and the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.

 

Best known for its statewide anti-drug advertising campaign, the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey is a private not-for-profit coalition of professionals from the communications, corporate and government communities whose collective mission is to reduce demand for illicit drugs in New Jersey through media communication.  To date, more than $70 million in broadcast time and print space has been donated to the Partnership’s New Jersey campaign, making it the largest public service advertising campaign in New Jersey’s history. Since its inception the Partnership has garnered 120 Advertising and Public Relations Awards from National, Regional & Statewide Media Organizations.

 

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