Millburn, New Jersey, Dec. 05, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2022 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series will conclude this month with an examination and discussion about what current data reveals about the path of the opioid epidemic. The webinar will be presented by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey (PDFNJ) and the Office of the New Jersey Coordinator for Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies (NJ CARES), which is responsible for overseeing addiction-fighting efforts across the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.
The webinar, “Opioids in New Jersey: A Look at 2022,” will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, December 8. Speakers will include Susan A. Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration – New Jersey Division (DEA – NJ), who will provide a national perspective on the opioid crisis and Captain Jason Piotrowski of the New Jersey State Police Drug Monitoring Initiative, who will discuss the trends in New Jersey.
In 2021, more than 3,000 people in New Jersey died from suspected drug overdoses, a vast majority of which involved some form of opioid, including prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, according to NJ CARES. There were more than 2,100 suspected drug overdose deaths through the first nine months of 2022.
“Addressing the opioid epidemic will require a continual examination of the data and trends of substance use and opioid misuse throughout New Jersey and the country,” said PDFNJ Executive Director Angelo Valente. “Data is a key component in understanding the magnitude and scope of the opioid crisis and properly allocating time and resources to most effectively fight this epidemic.”
This webinar will be the 12th and final in the 2022 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series. In 2021, PDFNJ and NJ CARES collaborated on 10 webinars as part of the series. The organizations first combined efforts on the series in 2020 as a strategy to provide education on the opioid crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The series is a branch of Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day, which has been held annually in New Jersey on October 6 since 2016. The statewide single-day initiative is organized by PDFNJ and The Community Coalition for a Safe & Healthy Morris, in cooperation with the New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. The goal of the day is to mobilize the prevention and treatment communities, community leaders and concerned citizens to raise awareness of the potential for dependency on prescribed pain medicine, as well as their link to heroin and fentanyl use in the state.
A schedule for the 2023 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Learning Series will be announced later this month. To learn more about Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day and to register for this and future webinars, please visit knockoutday.drugfreenj.org.
###
Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey: Best known for its statewide substance use prevention 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 $200 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 217 advertising and public relations awards from national, regional and statewide media organizations.
