Pubdate: Mon, 28 Apr 2014
Source: Record, The (Hackensack, NJ)
Copyright: 2014 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.northjersey.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/44
Author: Rebecca D. O'Brien

N.J. SENATE PANEL CONSIDERS OPTIONS FOR DEALING WITH HEROIN, 
PAINKILLER ADDICTION

State legislators on Monday weighed options for combating a statewide 
surge of heroin and prescription painkiller addiction, but arrived at 
no concrete solutions for a crisis that claimed at least 800 lives in 
New Jersey last year.

The Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Services Committee 
discussed a task force report on heroin and opiates, released last 
month by the Governor's Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, and 
heard testimony from the council's acting executive director, Celina Gray.

Committee members expressed alarm about the breadth of the state's 
opiate addiction problem, but also asked pointed questions of Gray 
about the Christie administration's financial commitment to the task 
force's recommendations, the efficacy of current recovery and 
prevention programs, and the task force's apparent focus on suburban 
addiction to the exclusion of urban areas long blighted by drugs and 
drug-related violence.

Gray, who at the meeting's outset presented the report's 
recommendations -- including tighter controls on prescribing 
practices, expanded recovery programs and updated drug-awareness 
curricula "to reflect the present landscape and crisis" -- had few 
answers for the senators.

"This is a law enforcement problem, but it's a public health crisis," 
committee chair Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Woodbridge, said. "I'm a little 
more interested in what is evidence-based prevention and treatment 
programs. I'm really past all the balloons, the confetti and the 
puppies and the donkey show, the 'Just Say No.' It doesn't work."

Vitale and several other senators stated concerns about the barriers 
to affordable, effective, timely treatment for addicts in need.

"It's a stark reality that if you commit a crime you can get care," 
Vitale said, referring to the state's drug court program. "We are so 
woefully underfunded when it comes to providing inpatient and 
outpatient services."

Senator Robert Singer, D-Lakewood, said Ocean County only had 19 beds 
for juvenile treatment. "Any day in Ocean and Monmouth you can go 
into an ER and see a teenager on a gurney," Singer said. "We have 
turned to strictly outpatient to solve our problems. Expanding those 
beds has got to be a lead issue."

"It's a suburban issue, it's a white issue, it's a money issue," 
Singer said. "It's a crisis situation in suburbia that is getting 
frighteningly worse."

On the prevention end, tightening access to painkillers by mandating 
use of the state's prescription drug monitoring program, or limiting 
the number of pills any doctor can prescribe, might have "unintended 
consequences," Vitale said: addicts may turn to the streets for their 
fix, and people in "legitimate chronic pain" might find barriers to treatment.

Singer said there had been "resistance" to efforts to expand the 
prescription monitoring program.

Sen. Bob Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, asked whether imposing limits on the 
number of pills prescribed would be an effective way to curtail abuse 
of painkillers.

"I think that would come out of conversations with prescribers, 
dispensers and stakeholders," Gray said. Gordon also asked Gray 
whether the council's proposed hotline would help people navigate the 
state's network of substance abuse services, or whether the state 
should have an ombudsman to help guide consumers.

"There are so many people out there totally at a loss, and we are 
making the process all the more complex and daunting by introducing a 
managed care element," Gordon said after the hearing. "How do you 
navigate the system?" He added: "I don't think my question was really 
answered."

Some of the senators criticized the council's prevention and 
awareness programs, including the municipal alliances -- county-level 
support services funded by the council. "We have to refocus what the 
alliances are doing," Singer said. "I don't think we are getting the 
biggest bang for our buck."

A December 2008 audit by the state comptroller depicted the 
Governor's Council as bloated and inefficient organization that had 
distributed more than $10 million in grants without proper review -- 
funds intended to support drug and alcohol education went to petting 
zoos, community fairs, and local entities that in some cases did not 
provide any supporting documentation.

A follow-up report in 2010 said the council had strengthened 
oversight of its administrative offices, but still did not have 
adequate controls on local programs.

"We are always looking at what the muni alliances are doing," Gray said Monday.

The task force report was released in March after waiting in draft 
form for months -- the council leadership and the Governor's office 
each blamed the other for delay.

In 2010, the council had an operating budget of approximately $1.3 
million, and an administrative staff of nine employees.

Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Newark, took issue with the report's focus on the 
suburbs: heroin has been ravaging New Jersey's cities and its 
minority citizens for decades, he said. "Every time there's a crisis 
outside that minority grouping, all of a sudden we pull all our 
resources together," Rice said. "That bothers me."

Any legislative solution that focused on "heroin in suburban areas, 
Shore communities, Bergen County" to the exclusion of black 
communities, was "not going to fly," Rice said.

Sen. Jim Whelan, of Atlantic County, raised another tension between 
cities and suburbs -- drug treatment centers are predominantly 
located in urban areas, where they have the effect of drawing 
criminal elements while at the same time failing to serve suburban addicts.

"We ask the cities to be economic engines, but none of the other 
towns or surrounding counties want to step up" to take on treatment 
facilities, Whelan said. "Do we have to get to a point where the 
urban centers hosting these places -- tourists aren't coming because 
you've got to run the gauntlet when you walk the boardwalk, of 
homeless people and drug dealers?"

Gray replied: "I really don't know the answer."

"It's a serious problem," Whelan said. "This has spilled out of the 
urban centers where we think of it traditionally being a problem, and 
yet the urban centers are still where all the treatment takes place. 
It's not fair, it's not smart. You can walk out the door and get all 
the drugs you want."

Vitale conceded that drug abuse has been around for a long time, and 
was long dismissed as "another one of those urban issues," but is now 
getting more attention now it's hitting hard in the suburban communities.

Whelan asked how the council, and the administration, proposed paying 
for their recommendations, particularly special high schools for 
recovering addicts.

Vitale suggested that a tax on e-cigarettes, which could bring in $30 
million in revenue a year, according to the state Treasurer's office, 
could support resources for addiction treatment and recovery.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom