March 2026: Even as evidence supports treatment and harm reduction, governments have increasingly revived drug-induced homicide (“DIH”) statutes, punitive measures rooted in a deterrence model that has not demonstrated success in preventing overdose deaths.

If drug-related death is a public health emergency, policy must be evaluated by whether it increases the likelihood that someone calls for help, and whether it prevents the next fatality, not solely by the severity of punishment imposed after one has occurred.

December 2025: As we enter our third year of tracking how New Jersey and its subdivisions are spending—or failing to spend—the opioid settlement dollars entrusted to them, we are sharpening our focus. In past years, we have monitored the state, municipalities, and counties alike. This year, our attention is on the counties–because while the Murphy administration has begun moving state dollars aggressively, far too many counties are still sitting on millions while residents struggle.

October 2025: It is imperative that policymakers prioritize investment not only in mental health and substance use services but also the essential programs that sustain family and community stability. It is imperative that we, as citizens and community members, voice our deepest hopes for the social system we want to live in—one where health and prosperity are not reserved for the few, but available to everyone. Without these systemic changes, we risk reversing the progress already made and forfeiting future progress, leaving millions without the care and support they desperately need. Currently, the cost of complacency is far too high. In this moment, advocacy has never been more powerful or more essential.

July 2025: In the great efforts to save lives during the overdose crisis, the profound impact on the lives of family members is often overlooked. For each precious life lost, there are countless others that life touched who are left to grieve its loss. Due to the persistent stigma associated with substance use, many are left to manage a loved one’s substance use without the support and education they need. 

March 2025: During the COVID-19 pandemic, in a stroke of marketing genius, several airlines introduced “flights to nowhere,” where planes took off and landed at the same airport. This concept emerged as a way for airlines to generate revenue and for passengers to experience air travel despite international restrictions. The introduction of New Jersey Senate bill, S4154 feels eerily like the illusion of travel without going anywhere—the illusion of progress without delivering on its promises.

December 2024: While drug-related deaths have decreased in New Jersey and nationwide, there are certain areas in the country- and counties in New Jersey, where deaths have increased. New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner, Dr. Kaitlin Batson explained that “as we’ve seen the numbers drop off for White New Jerseyans, we’ve actually seen them continue to rise in the Black and Brown communities in our state, which is unacceptable. And we’re seeing disproportionate numbers of people affected in rural areas and staggering numbers in the elderly population. And so, I say all this not to be depressing, but to say we have work to do, and that is why we are here.”

September 2024: Over the past several years, there has been a change in New Jersey’s approach to the opioid epidemic. While NCAAR as an advocacy organization often brings attention to the barriers citizens face to access recovery, it is equally important to acknowledge the wave of positive steps the state has taken. Through various policy measures and programs, the state has demonstrated a new commitment to evidence-based public health responses to the drug epidemic, and those efforts are saving lives.

May 2024: To relate the analogy of Irving Zola, if one were to investigate why so many people are falling into the river of substance use, it is because they are sucked in by a vacuum of structural inequities in our social, health, legal, and economic systems that are built by policies that misattributed the failure solely to the individual rather than the system. The way to change that is to readily and intentionally prioritize the health of everyone, including people who use drugs, and acknowledge those who have been forced to the margins. If we build our systems on the foundation of data rather than discrimination, real stories rather than stigma, and collaboration rather than separation, perhaps the devastation of the War on Drugs (and the people who use them) will finally be considered our greatest teacher rather than our longest war.

March 2024: The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation released a report covering their findings and recommendations from an investigation into “abuses and corrupt practices in the addiction rehabilitation industry in New Jersey.” The report, while making several broad, generalized recommendations, did not include the comprehensive policy analysis that would improve the dire situation people with substance use disorders face daily while seeking help. Perhaps it was written with good intentions, but the road to unintended consequences is often paved with such and New Jersey must stop wasting funds and assets on anything other than evidence-based responses to the current health crisis we face.

February 2024: The term ‘second chances’ is frequently spoken but rarely embraced. Eduardo Macedo said that “[t]rue redemption is seized when you accept the future consequences for your past mistakes.” Nowhere is that concept of redemption truer than in New Jersey, with one caveat. In New Jersey, and America, most people who become involved in the criminal system do not become so because of ‘mistakes’ or ‘choices.’ Many people become ensnared in the criminal system because of failed policies and laws, such as the War on Drugs, which has criminalized a public health crisis for a better part of a century

November 2023: New Jersey and its subdivisions will receive more than 1.1 billion dollars over the next two decades to combat the opioid epidemic through settlement agreements with various opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. According to the terms of the settlement agreements in those various cases, approximately half of the settlement dollars will go directly to the State to administer and, after payment of litigation expenses, the remainder will be distributed directly to 262 eligible subdivisions (comprising 21 counties and eligible municipalities that have populations over 10,000 or that filed related lawsuits).

July 2023: “Young man, I too know who I am. What I don’t know is where I’m going.” -Albert Einstein.

New Jersey Legislature has taken bold action to increase education, awareness, and prevention related to suicide on college campuses, in response to the recent alarming increase in such preventable deaths. New Jersey is also the first state in the nation to legislatively require the use of medically correct and non-stigmatizing terminology in its statutes and government entity names related to substance use disorder.