Camden County sees major drop in fatal drug overdoses so far this year

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Leaders and public health experts in Camden County, New Jersey hope that their efforts to address the devastating addiction and opioid crisis are starting to pay off.

Camden County has recorded 109 drug overdose deaths in the first six months of this year, according to new preliminary state data. That’s down 39% from the number of fatalities recorded during the same time last year.

The local decline is in line with a nationwide trend of falling fatal drug overdoses, though overdoses still claimed more than 100,000 lives across the United States in 2023.

Still, seeing a smaller number of drug overdose deaths is positive news, said Dr. Rachel Haroz, associate professor of emergency medicine and addiction medicine specialist at Cooper University Health Care in Camden.

“I’m hopeful,” she said, but added that the feeling comes with cautious optimism. “We have had [fatalities] go down before in the past and then just jettison right back up again, so I would have to see repeated declines to trust that this isn’t just a little blip.”

Camden County Director Commissioner Louis Cappelli, Jr. credits public awareness campaigns, addiction treatment programs and the opioid overdose reversal medication, naloxone, for the local decline in deaths.

“We still have a long way to go, and there’s a lot more we’re going to do, but we’re seeing things moving in the right direction,” Cappelli said.

Haroz and her colleagues see the impact of the opioid epidemic every day through their work at the Cooper Center for Healing, which provides inpatient and outpatient substance use treatment, behavioral health, primary and specialty care and other services.

She said there are a lot of reasons why she believes their efforts are beginning to make a larger impact.

“As a community, there’s been more adoption that this is all of our problem. That this isn’t just the patient’s problem, the family’s problem, the medical community’s problem, but this is all of our problem,” Haroz said. “And really the only way to address this is through true collaboration, open communication and adoption of very equitable, evidence-based care.”

Strategies to combat the addiction epidemic in Camden County have included installing naloxone in public places and schools, expanding medication-assisted treatment for people in jails and prisons, establishing mobile treatment programs, investing in recovery support services and more.

Going forward, Haroz said Cooper Health is working to help build a new one-stop-shop health care facility that will offer addiction treatment, mental and psychiatric care, primary care, obstetrics and other services all in the same place.

Cappelli said the county also plans to ramp up housing opportunities and social services options for people who are struggling with addiction and who are also homeless.

“Just sending someone to treatment isn’t enough,” he said.