Prevent Opiate Abuse today applauded the final passage of S3/A3(Vitale/Sweeney/Kean/Prieto/Bramnick/Conaway), saying that this comprehensive legislation puts New Jersey on the right path in the fight to prevent and combat opiate addiction. S3//A3 makes Governor’s Christie’s executive order compelling an initial 5 pill limit permanent law and and mandates all prescribers receive ongoing training in current best prescribing practices as a condition of being allowed to prescribe opiate based painkillers. It requires a conversation between all patients and their doctor about the risks of addiction and, when appropriate, potential alternatives before an opiate is prescribed. condition of being allowed to prescribe opiate based painkillers, among other provisions. This requirement for a conversation before an opiate is prescribed expands to all patients the provisions of a recently adopted law targeted specifically at the parents of children and teenagers.
Elaine Pozycki, Chair of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey applauded the sponsors of the legislation and Governor Christie who worked together on this omnibus legislation. Pozycki said, “With the passage of this comprehensive legislation, New Jersey will now have the tools needed to attack the main source of the epidemic—the over-prescribing of opiate based painkillers.”
Pozycki added, “New Jersey now has among the strongest-if not the strongest–set of opiate prevention laws of any state in the nation.”
She noted that with more than 100,000 New Jersey residents already addicted to prescription opiates or its illegal street cousin, heroin, more than 5,000 overdose deaths in our state in the past decade alone, and the overdose antidote, Narcan, employed more than 20 times a day, this comprehensive set of common sense prevention measures are essential.
S3/A3 passed the Assembly overwhelmingly, by a…. Last week, it passed the State Senate 33 to 0. The Governor is scheduled to sign the bill into law today.