FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 16, 2024

Contact: Lisa Batitto, news@drugfreenj.org

Webinar to Address Health Disparities
and Discrimination in Opioid Treatment

MILLBURN ­– The sixth webinar in the 2024 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series will focus on the impact of racial discrimination and disparities within the opioid crisis. This educational event, a collaboration of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey (PDFNJ), the Office of Alternative and Community Responses (OACR), and the Opioid Education Foundation of America (OEFA), is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 20.

The webinar, “Opioids: Impacts of Health Disparities & Discrimination,” will feature expert discussions on the racial health disparities within the opioid epidemic, including issues in prescribing and accessing treatment. The session aims to equip healthcare professionals and the general public with the knowledge and tools to recognize and address these issues.

Speakers for this session include Aarin Michele Williams, Esq., the chief advisor to the director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, and Dr. Eldene Towey, chief of addiction psychiatry at Westchester Medical Center Health Services and medical director of Kyle Goldberg Turning Point Addiction Treatment Center.

“Understanding and addressing health disparities and discrimination are essential steps in combating the opioid crisis,” said Angelo Valente, Executive Director of PDFNJ. “This webinar aims to empower healthcare professionals with the knowledge to create more equitable treatment environments.”

PDFNJ hosts the series in collaboration with OEFA and OACR, which was formed in March 2024 in an effort to coordinate the law enforcement and public health response to the intersecting public health crises of substance use and mental health (including the work of the Office of the New Jersey Coordinator for Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies “NJ CARES”), across the Department of Law and Public Safety and throughout the state.

The Learning Series has grown each year since it was created in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with attendance reaching nearly 10,000 in 2023. Participants have learned from experts from a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including representatives of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the New Jersey Department of Health, the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as many universities and state and local organizations involved in the fight against the opioid epidemic. Speakers have included New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, former New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Regional Director Dr. Dara Kass and award-winning author Sam Quinones.

The series is a branch of PDFNJ’s Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day statewide initiative, which has been held annually on October 6 since 2016 to educate residents and prescribers on the risks of prescription opioids and to raise awareness of the opioid crisis throughout the state.

To learn more about Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day and for a schedule of webinars, please visit knockoutday.drugfreenj.org.

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Best known for its statewide anti-drug 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 226 advertising and public relations awards from national, regional and statewide media organizations.