Dr. Shereef Elnahal (center), NJ Commissioner of Health, flanked by Dr. Mark S. Rosenberg, St. Joseph’s Health (left), and Kathy Ahearn-O'Brien, Hyacinth

New Jersey has made progress reducing the number of opioid prescriptions written and the risks associated with this substance-use disorder. But more must be done to prevent people from turning to addictive drugs and keeping them as safe and healthy as possible if they do become dependent.

That was the general consensus among a panel of experts who joined NJ Spotlight at Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus Friday to discuss the opioid epidemic in the Garden State, with a focus on prevention and risk reduction. These efforts must look beyond addiction itself, to the underlying causes of the disease, including poverty, lack of safe housing, emotional and physical traumas, and other social determinants of health, participants agreed.

The panelists — Health Commissioner Dr. Shereef Elnahal; Kathy Ahearn-O’Brien, executive director of the Hyacinth Foundation Dr. Mark Rosenberg of St. Joseph’s Heath, and Hackensack Meridian Health’s Dr. Roman Solhkhah — generally supported similar strategies for advancing prevention goals, but diverged on one issue in particular: the role of medicinal marijuana in addressing addiction. (Elnahal favors expanding access; Solhkhah raised concerns it too is addictive.) Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) was also scheduled to attend but was unable to make it at the last minute.

A combination of awareness, stricter regulation, and new clinical protocols has helped drive down opioid prescription levels — a nearly 20 percent decline since 2015 in New Jersey, Elnahal noted. But close to 1,400 residents have died of overdose-related causes so far this year, putting the Garden State on track to surpass last year’s mortality figures by up to 1,000 lives, state data suggests.

Building on gains

The state must now build on its gains so far, Elnahal said, calling for an expansion of a protocol created by St. Joseph’s that has helped cut the use of addictive drugs in the Garden State’s busiest emergency room by more than 80 percent in two years. In addition, improvements are needed to better integrate the opioid prescription database with electronic health records and statewide health-related data, he said.

“Some early leading indicators have improved,” Elnahal told the audience, which included healthcare advocates, industry representatives, and government officials, “but not the one we care about most: opioid overdose deaths.”

The event was the first of three in a series NJ Spotlight is hosting on this topic in an effort to explore the current state of addiction in New Jersey, as it relates to healthcare; a discussion of treatment is scheduled for September and recovery will be the focus of an October roundtable.

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