Naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversing drug that saves thousands of lives in the state every year, will become vastly easier to obtain in New Jersey under a bipartisan package of bills Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Friday.
Better known by its brand name Narcan, Naloxone was administered 14,437 times in 2020, according to information from the state Attorney General’s Office. Still, 3,046 people in New Jersey died in 2020 from suspected drug overdoses, up from 3,021 in 2019.
“Over the past 16 months, as we’ve battled the COVID pandemic, we have never forgotten the need to continue our work against the overdose epidemic,” Murphy said during the bill signing ceremony in Asbury Park. “COVID made this even tougher as we faced strong headwinds of social isolation, job loss, grief for the death of loved ones to COVID, financial insecurity, housing insecurity, on and one.”
The Democratic governor stressed there is “no one single magic wand that we have to end our opioid crisis,” saying it can stopped only “by continued compassion, vigilance, and hard work.”
One of the bills signed into law (S3491) will expand access to anyone who wants to obtain opioid antidotes through a pharmacy. Another law (S5595) requires the state Division of Consumer Affairs to publish the retail price of opioid antidotes on the “New Jersey Prescription Drug Retail Price Registry,” located on its website.
And another (S5703) requires state-regulated health insurers, such as Medicaid, NJ FamilyCare, the State Health Benefits Plan, and School Employees’ Health Benefits Plan to cover naloxone without imposing prior authorization requirements.
State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, a prime sponsor, thanked the governor for helping to save lives by his actions, noting drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in the nation.
“Many of these lives could have been saved with the use of opioid antidotes, however; there is currently only a limited amount of individuals authorized to administer these antidotes,” Vitale said.
Other laws in the package will permit mobile intensive care paramedics to administer buprenorphine (S3803) and allow school districts to administer, with prior parental permission health surveys of students to collect information about their views on drug, alcohol and tobacco (A5597).
Drug addiction and overdoses have wreaked havoc on families. Murphy also signed legislation, S3814, that would require the child welfare system and the family courts to make efforts to place children with relatives instead of foster care.
“Kinship relationships increase the emotional well-being of a child and reduce their number of placements in foster care. This legislation will allow case precedent to better reflect new research,” said state Sen. Fred Madden, D-Gloucester, one of the bill’s prime sponsors.
“We’ve worked to get the opioid overdose antidote naloxone into as many hands as possible, distributing 62,000 free doses to residents at more than 300 pharmacies and giving more than 70,000 free naloxone doses to police, EMS, homeless shelters, libraries, reentry organizations and county mobile outreach units,” Department of Human Services Acting Commissioner Sarah Adelman said.
“Naloxone saves lives, and these new laws will help reinforce these efforts to get it into as many hands as possible in as many ways as possible.”
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Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01.