The Opioid Crisis

A government database published by The Washington Post shows that 76 billion pills were distributed nationwide between 2006-2012. More than 1.5 billion of those were distributed in New Jersey, and the publication also provided a county-by-county breakdown.

The news from the federal government that drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2018 for the first time in three decades – but increased in New Jersey – comes just as a new report published by The Washington Post shows the staggering number of opioid pills that flooded the country and contributed to the opioid crisis.

According to the data published by The Post, 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were distributed across the country between 2006-2012. The figures come from a DEA database that The Post and The Charleston Gazette-Mail sued to obtain. A judge in Cleveland overseeing a combined lawsuit from cities across the country against drug companies granted the newspapers partial access to the database following an appeal.

The Post also published the figures showing how many pain pills reached individual states and counties.
In New Jersey, 1,518,780,056 prescription pain pills were distributed between 2006-2012, the report said.


According to the latest provisional data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 67,744 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2018, a 5 percent decline from the previous year. The agency predicts that number will rise to more than 680,000 once all data is reported to them.

In New Jersey, there were 4,763 drug overdose deaths in 2018, an increase of 15 percent since 2017, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

In its report, The Post said many of the pills distributed in the seven-year period in New Jersey came from five companies with pharmacies: Partners Pharmacy in Springfield, CVS, Ominicare in Edison, Covered Bridge Pharmacy of Cherry Hill and Keansburg Drugs.
Four other companies were identified by the paper as being among the top 10 distributors of opioids: Smith Drug Co., Rite Aid, Kroger and H.D. Smith.
Here's how many pills were distributed in New Jersey, county-by-county, from 2006-2012:

• Atlantic County: 73,621,097 prescription pain pills, enough for 38 pills per person per year

More at
https://patch.com/new-jersey/tomsriver/opioid-crisis-1-5b-pain-pills-flooded-new-jersey-7-years?utm_content=newjersey&utm_campaign=blasts&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1wMjbS-jawWKipjGZSLadz0fWxpHICieDzwaj88P9XQfKenMyV2NkgYT8