In the News
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NYTimes.com: Dealing With Opioid Abuse Would Pay for Itself
Posted 8/4/2014
Once championed as the answer to chronic pain, opioid medications and painkillers have become a large and costly problem in the United States. Fatal overdoses have quadrupled in the last 15 years, and opioids now cause more deaths than any other drug, over 16,000 in 2010. Prescription opioid abuse is also costly, sapping productivity and increasing health care and criminal justice costs to the tune of $55.7 billion in 2007, for example.
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NJ.com: Opinion: Require prescription drug monitoring in New Jersey
Posted 7/30/2014
By Steve and Elaine Pozycki The prescription drug abuse epidemic and its related explosion of heroin addiction continue apace in NJ. We read about the human cost in ruined lives and premature deaths in our newspapers every day. As bills are beginning to be introduced in the General Assembly and a policy response to this acknowledged epidemic is forming, now is not the time for half-measures.
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FranklinReporter.com: Township Doctor’s License Revoked For Prescription Violations
Posted 7/21/2014
A township doctor’s medical license has been revoked over charges that he prescribed “narcotic painkillers that put his patients at risk of addiction, and of continuing to prescribe increasing dosages to patients despite clear evidence that they were abusing drugs,” according to a release from the state Attorney General’s Office.
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APP.com: Ocean County's heroin fight cut by new drug
Posted 7/7/2014
Some drug dealers, ever enterprising and competitive, have recently begun cutting their heroin supply with Fentanyl, a highly powerful opiate that enhances the high to even deadlier levels than heroin alone, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
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Hear Angelo M. Valente, Ex. Dir. of PDFNJ, Interviewed in 5 Part Series on 101.5 FM
Posted 6/30/2014
From June 23 to June 27, NJ 101.5 reporter David Matthau filed an informative and important series about the rise opioid abuse in New Jersey, featuring PDFNJ executive director, Angelo M. Valente
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NJ expands overdose antidote program to all 21 counties
Posted 6/17/2014
Law enforcement officers across New Jersey will now carry a drug that can be used to quickly reverse heroin overdoses.
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DailyRecord.com: Symposium targets painkiller 'epidemic'
Posted 6/14/2014
MORRISTOWN – The dangers of driving, especially while intoxicated, are well-documented but no longer represent the most common cause of accidental death in New Jersey.
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APP.com: Doctors hear about opiate prescription precautions at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Posted 6/12/2014
In the auditorium of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University Thursday, Meg DuPont Parisi explained to an audience of about 100 medical professionals how an addiction to prescription opiates killed her son, Patrick.
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NJ Senate and Assembly Declare June 9 to 13 Opioid Abuse Awareness Week
Posted 6/12/2014
NJ Senate and Assembly urges all citizens of NJ to participate and inform themselves about opiate abuse by visiting TalkNowNJ.com.
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NJ.com - Ocean Township police make Monmouth County's first heroin overdose save using Narcan
Posted 6/6/2014
OCEAN TOWNSHIP –Township police have made the first overdose reversal in Monmouth County using the opioid antidote Naloxone, also known as Narcan, just one day after it was placed in the hands of the police officers.