New NJ Drug Office

New Jersey's attorney general on Thursday announced a sweeping statewide initiative to combat the opioid crisis, including a 24-hour response team and a beefed-up prescription monitoring program funded with more than a million dollars in federal grants.

"The opioid crisis is unprecedented in its scope and devastating in its intensity, and our response must be equally broad in scope and intensity," Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement announcing the moves.
The efforts will be overseen by the newly formed Office of the New Jersey Coordinator for Addiction Response and Enforcement Strategies, known as "NJ CARES," which will exist within the state's Department of Law and Public Safety.
Grewal made the announcement during a speech at the Center for Health and Pharmaceutical Law and Policy at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark.

The office will oversee new Statewide Opioid Response Teams, in which local police, mental health advocates, substance abuse counselors and first responders specially trained in dealing with addicts will be on-call. The program is being funded with a $850,000 federal grant, the attorney general said.
The state is expanding the number of drugs included in its prescription monitoring program, which helps doctors and health care providers detect prescription drug abuse, and expanding access to mental health professionals.
It is also creating an inter-agency "dashboard" that will help state officials share the monitoring data along with data on heroin and fentanyl arrests, Narcan use, overdoses and treatment information. That program will be paid for with another  $600,000 federal grant.   
Sharon Joyce, a deputy director within the Division of Law and acting head of the Division of Consumer Affairs, will head the new office, Grewal said

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