By Aubrey Whelan
The Philadelphia Inquirer
CAMDEN COUNTY, N.J — Fatal overdoses in Camden County, New Jersey, dropped 40% during the first six months of 2024 — a significant decrease in a county where the overdose rate is among the highest in the state.
Expanded outreach programs, an effort to lower barriers to addiction treatment and harm reduction, and better collaboration between county agencies that work with addicted people have likely contributed to the decline, county officials say.
But it’s too early to know exactly what’s behind the decrease in overdoses, said Rachel Haroz, who heads the Division of Toxicology and Addiction Medicine at Cooper University Hospital, and too early to predict whether it will hold.
“I’m very cautiously optimistic about these numbers, but they’ve dropped before and come back up,” said Haroz, who for years has worked closely with county officials to address addiction and overdoses in Camden.
A decline in overdose deaths
In 2022, Camden County saw 354 overdose deaths, according to state data. Fatalities dropped slightly in 2022, to 326. This year, between January and June, 109 people died of overdoses, a 39% decrease from the year before.
Camden County has a population of 520,000 — one-third the size of Philadelphia — which makes reaching people with addiction easier, said Louis Cappelli, the director of the Camden County Board of Commissioners. “We have a much more manageable situation,” he said.
Camden officials and others who work with people in addiction, including the police department, the jail, hospitals, methadone clinics, and community organizations collaborate frequently, often through text messages, Haroz said.
She regularly fields requests from the county jail, which runs a nationally lauded opioid addiction treatment program, to connect recently released prisoners with immediate addiction care.
Studies show the days after someone is released from incarceration are particularly dangerous for people with addiction, because abstaining from drugs in jail may cause them to lose their tolerance for opioids, making it easier to overdose if they use again.
“It’s very common for the jail to just call me on my phone and say, ‘Hey, we have a patient who can’t make it to a methadone clinic — can you dose them?’ There’s a lot more opportunity to avoid gaps in care, and that’s what leads to overdose,” Haroz said.
Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said her office tracks demographic data on overdose deaths that local law enforcement responds to, and sends its community outreach unit to “hotspots” with outreach workers who can help people with addiction into treatment.
The county has also opened a shelter with more than 20 beds and social and medical services on offer and launched a program to offer addiction treatment to people brought to municipal courts for minor drug charges.
“No longer are police officers in Camden County most concerned with arresting anyone who has drugs,” Cappelli said. “They’re more concerned with people who are using drugs getting treatment than being punished.”
Increasing harm reduction efforts
Making naloxone widely available has also likely helped decrease deaths, Haroz said.
The overdose-reversing drug is now stocked at schools, on school buses, and in other public areas.
“We have worked very hard to put naloxone into the hands of the people that are on the ground,” she said. The number of naloxone doses administered by paramedics and law enforcement in Camden County has dropped in recent years, a sign that people with addiction and their friends and family are administering it to each other, without having to wait for an ambulance or squad car to arrive.
State laws that make it easier to distribute harm reduction tools such as sterile syringes and naloxone have also made a difference, advocates say. Since a 2021 measure allowed anyone in the state to hand out naloxone for free, the New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition has given out 200,000 doses, said Caitlin O’Neill, the group’s drug user health and liberation strategist. At least 1,300 people have used them to revive overdose victims.
The group has also partnered with hospitals, including Cooper, to distribute testing strips for fentanyl and xylazine, the animal tranquilizer that has contaminated much of the region’s opioid supply.
“We’re able to expand how people get their supplies, which expands how people are using the supplies,” O’Neill said.
When Camden County paramedics do respond to an overdose, Haroz said, they are also permitted to start a patient on buprenorphine, an opioid-based addiction treatment medication that quells cravings and can prevent overdoses. New Jersey became the first state in the country to authorize such programs in 2019; now, Haroz said, several other states have launched similar efforts.
Cooper physicians have also been prescribing a monthly injectable version of buprenorphine for more patients, rather than requiring them to take the medication daily. That’s crucial for patients who don’t have stable housing or a support system and have difficulty taking medications daily.
Cappelli said he’s optimistic that this year’s drop in deaths is a sign of more permanent change.
“The investments we’ve made over the years are starting to pay off,” he said. “But we still have a long way to go.”
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