Christie also opened the first drug treatment facility for the state’s prisoners (Oberman operates it), cut red tape for people who have private insurance and started a program to expand availability of naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses. Even Christie’s critics – and there are many – have a hard time finding fault with the governor’s reforms to a broken drug treatment system. In 2015, more than 52,000 people died of a drug overdose in the US, the majority of them from opioids. In 2015, at least 1,454 New Jerseyans died of a drug overdose. Just 31 treatment clinics in New Jersey offer medications such as methadone to help people stop using opioids, therapies known as “medication-assisted treatment”.

Source: The Guardian August 22, 2017 11:00 UTC