By Chris Rotolo
Multiple settlements with the pharmaceutical development corporation Johnson & Johnson and other opioid distributors have yielded a $641 million payout to the state, which acting Attorney General, Matt Platkin, and Gov. Phil Murphy announced will be used on treatment, prevention and strategies to combat the opioid epidemic.
However, though opioids like fentanyl, oxycodone and morphine-based substances have proven problematic, if not deadly, for citizens across the nation, Michael Litterer of RWJ Barnabas Health wonders if the overwhelming support for treatment and prevention of this particular issue is curbing the response to addiction and self-harm at large.
“There’s been such a focus on opioids over the last few years, and not enough focus on the use of substances overall,” said Litterer, who serves as the vice president of the RWJ Barnabas Health Institute for Prevention and Recovery in Eatontown.
“Over the last two years, we’ve witnessed rises in alcohol abuse, stimulant use disorders, and other abuses of addictive substances. I don’t want to minimize the concerns about opioids, but I think we need to shift our focus and look at how substance use disorders, overall, are increasing,” Litterer said in an April 5 interview with The Two River Times.
The Johnson & Johnson settlement, which also involves payouts from the nation’s three largest pharmaceutical distributors – McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBegen – is directly linked to the manufacturing of opioids, and is due to be paid out to the state over the next 16 years. The funds will be divided evenly, with half going to the state and the other half being distributed to counties and municipalities, to support strategies that will reduce the opioid epidemic’s ongoing harms.
From Litterer’s perspective, it’s the multiple other additional sources of state and federal funding earmarked to battle opioids that are missing the core issue.
“As someone in the world of recovery, it just seems like a piece of funding that comes out is for opioids. And that takes away from what’s available for other programs. People who struggle with alcohol, or a myriad of other conditions, need saving too,” Litterer said.
At a basic level, Litterer referred to addiction as a disease of isolation, describing how people in the worst grips of the affliction will separate themselves from every support person or program they have established.
“You can only imagine what that looks like during a pandemic, when we’re forced to isolate,” said Litterer, who explained his network of health care of providers is currently conducting a comprehensive assessment of the past two-plus years to determine if more people began using substances during the pandemic, or if those who had previously successfully entered into recovery began using again.
“We most likely won’t have a definite answer on this for some time, but it is how we’re thinking about the situation right now, because there was definitely a rise in substance use during the pandemic,” Litterer added.
A particular area of pandemic-related data that has become a focal point for Litterer and his team is the disparity in the rise of substance use between populations of color and majority white populations.
For the first time since the statistic was recorded, national overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 in a calendar year, between March 2020 and April 2021.
Of the 50 states, Litterer said New Jersey is the only one that saw a decrease in overdose deaths during that period, dropping by 1 percent. But the figure fails to render an accurate picture of the real environment.
“We were ahead of the curve for a number of years, so we didn’t see that dramatic increase of (overdose deaths) during the period of study. As for the decrease, our data did show a decrease amongst white residents, but those deaths amongst black people and people of color is overcompensating. There is a definite disparity,” Litterer said.
Litterer likened the phenomenon to the same disparity seen across the state in vaccination rates, cases of diabetes and general health care.
“We see the impacts based on where people live, the color of their skin and other socioeconomic factors. There is a definite disproportionality in substance use disorder and access to treatment in regard to race,” Litterer said. “We don’t have answers yet, but we are looking into it. The conversation is happening.”
The article originally appeared in the April 7 – 13, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
