Webinar to Examine Stigma's Impact on the Opioid Crisis

PDFNJ and New Jersey Attorney General's Office to Host 5^th Webinar of 2022

MILLBURN, N.J., May 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New Jersey's opioid epidemic continues to affect every community in the state, including populations that have faced increased challenges from the waves of addiction and overdoses experienced over the past decade. Experts will highlight vulnerable populations — the LGBTQI+ community, people experiencing homelessness, and people formerly incarcerated — and their struggles in the midst of the opioid crisis in the next installment of Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series, presented by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey (PDFNJ) and the Office of the New Jersey Coordinator of Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies (NJ CARES), which is responsible for overseeing addiction-fighting efforts across the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.

The webinar, "The Opioid Epidemic: A Focus on Vulnerable Populations Part II," will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, May 26. The presentation will feature former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, Executive Director of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation; Barrett Young, Chief Executive Officer of the Rescue Mission of Trenton; and Brian McGovern, Chief Executive Director of North Jersey Community Research.

"The opioid epidemic in New Jersey has not spared any community or any type of person, regardless of their background. However, there certainly are groups in New Jersey that have been experienced an even more devastating toll during this crisis," PDFNJ Executive Director Angelo Valente said. "This webinar will help us to understand why certain groups or individuals are more vulnerable to opioid misuse, addiction and overdose."

This webinar will be the fifth in the 2022 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series. In 2021, PDFNJ and NJ CARES collaborated on 10 webinars as part of the series. The organizations first combined efforts on the series in 2020 as a strategy to provide education on the opioid crisis in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The series is a branch of Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day, which has been held in New Jersey on October 6 each year since 2016. In 2021, more than 3,000 people in New Jersey died from suspected drug overdoses.

To learn more about the Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day and to register for this and future webinars, please visit knockoutday.drugfreenj.org.

SOURCE Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey

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