The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office released an update to the year-end report on heroin and opioid overdose statistics in the county, as part of a prolonged effort to document and map out the impact that opioids have on Bergen County residents, as well as to provide a map of overdose rescues made by local law enforcement officers.
Originally, it was thought that there were 308 total overdose victims in the county during 2016, but the figure is now on record as 320. Now that 2017 is just more than halfway over, the prosecutor’s office revealed that there have already been 244 reported overdose cases, well above the 50 percent mark of last year’s number.
The alarming increase in overdose victims and fatalities is being addressed by the prosecutor’s office and local law enforcement in a multitude of ways. It is common practice to treat opioid or heroin overdose victims with a substance called Narcan, often administered as a nasal spray, which directly counters the effect that opiates have on the nervous system.
The yearly increase in both overdoses and Narcan saves is attributed by the prosecutor’s office to heroin being laced with a synthetic opiate and surgically-administered painkiller called Fentanyl, which is up to 50 times more potent than heroin.
In 2016, Bergen County saw an 11.1 percent increase in reported overdoses, marking 320 victims. The prosecutor’s office initiated Operation Helping Hand, in attempt to provide clinical treatment to low-level drug offenders who were apprehended for charges relating to heroin or opiate use, resulting in some arrestees accepting detox and medical treatment via the program.
According to the prosecutor’s office report, 10,000 students were presented with information from detectives, recovering addicts and parents who have lost children to addiction about the pathways to lethal addiction.
The prosecutor’s office also periodically takes to social media to provide public information about overdoses, in a campaign called #StoptheODs, which shares each municipality in which an overdose occurred, as well as the age and gender of the victim, in an attempt to de-stigmatize addiction by portraying that every pocket of society is impacted by the heroin and opiate crisis.
Of the 320 reported overdoses, the prosecutor’s office reported that Narcan was deployed 208 times, saving 180 people. Of the incidents, 98 were fatal. Overdoses were generally more condensed to the southern portion of the county, though less than half of all towns in Bergen were immune from overdoses in the course of the year.
According to the report, Northern Valley was impacted as follows during 2016:
- Closter had two overdoses, both of which resulted in lives saved by Narcan administration.
- Demarest officers deployed Narcan once, and no fatalities occurred within the town.
- Harrington Park saw one fatal overdose in 2016, where no Narcan was deployed.
- Haworth had no overdoses during the year.
- Northvale saw three overdoses, and two of the victims were saved through Narcan deployment. One victim succumbed to an overdose without treatment.
- Norwood did not have any reported overdoses.
- Old Tappan officers were able to rescue one overdose victim through the use of Narcan, which prevented any fatal overdoses in the town.
- Rockleigh had no reported overdoses.