Rocky Schwartz’s sister Laura Lee Lewis died in 2003 after battling an addiction to opioids. About six weeks later, Schwartz lost her childhood best friend, Hilary, to an opioid overdose.
“My life has been profoundly impacted by the opioid crisis,” Schwartz told the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee on Monday. “I can’t even count how many funerals I have attended.”
Schwartz was one of several advocates who testified during a crowded committee hearing, voicing their support for a bill that would restore $45 million to a state fund aimed at supporting addiction treatment services.
In a last-minute move, without a public hearing or discussion, lawmakers diverted the $45 million to four hospital systems to use in their own addiction treatment programs, a diversion incorporated into the $58.8 billion state budget Gov. Phil Murphy signed in June.
The bill heard Monday, introduced last month by Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), would return that money to the state Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund. An earlier version to do that stalled in the Legislature at the end of last year.
That fund diversion by lawmakers prompted swift pushback from recovery advocates, who staged a “die in” in a State House hallway, and rare criticism from former state attorney general, Matt Platkin.
“These settlement funds are not general revenues for the State,” Platkin said in a statement when the money was pulled in June. “They are the result of some of the most significant lawsuits ever filed by attorneys general across this country to force companies to pay back the blood money that they stole in fueling the opioid epidemic.”
Credit: Bobby Brier/NJ Spotlight NewsRecovery advocates are now saying that the Legislature has both a legal duty and a moral responsibility to restore the money to the state fund while noting that the unanimous passing of the bill during the Senate committee hearing on Monday is a “step in the right direction.”
Jenna Mellor of the New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition said in a statement that the money was intended for community-led harm reduction services that are “punching way above their weight” compared to any other health system.
“It’s these programs, along with new supportive housing and community-based medication for addiction treatment programs, that should be receiving opioid settlement dollars because they are effective, efficient, and the number one reason overdose deaths have gone down in New Jersey,” said Mellor, the coalition’s executive director.
The Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund’s nine-member advisory council, which includes Mellor, released a 108-page plan in June that recommended New Jersey spend its share of federal opioid settlement funds on expanding housing-first initiatives, distributing harm-reduction supplies through community organizations and broadening family support and treatment programs.
The council was formed in 2023 to guide the spending of New Jersey’s payout from national opioid lawsuit settlements, a total of $1.3 billion over 15 years to be paid by drugmakers, marketers and distributors that flooded the nation with highly addictive medications. Under the settlement terms, half of that $1.3 billion is for state government while the rest is marked for counties and about 250 municipalities.
Credit: Bobby Brier/NJ Spotlight NewsUnder Vitale’s reintroduced legislation, $45 million would be restored to the Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund while the four hospitals would get $45 million from the state’s general fund. Hackensack University Medical Center would receive $10 million; RWJBarnabas Health and Cooper University Hospital, $15 million each; and Atlantic Health System, $5 million. The hospitals would have to provide “necessary care and treatment” for victims of opioid-related health issues.
In an interview with NJ Spotlight News after Monday’s hearing, Vitale said he is “hopeful” that Gov. Mikie Sherrill will support the legislation. Vitale noted that Sherrill supported the work of harm reduction programs during her campaign for governor. Sherrill’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
While drug overdose deaths have declined in recent years in New Jersey, advocates have noted that Black communities have been hit disproportionately hard by the overdose crisis and are too often left behind, underfunded, and overlooked “even while carrying the heaviest burden.”
“We need to make sure resources actually reach the people who need them most and that our communities aren’t continuously extracted from and then left to deal with the consequences,” said Bre Azañedo of the National Black Harm Reduction Network. Azañedo is also a member of the advisory council.
New Jersey has allocated more than $324 million in state-level opioid settlement resources toward prevention, treatment, recovery and community support, according to a recent news release from the state.
While there is no version of the bill in the Assembly, advocates are urging Sherill to sign the bill into law once it is on her desk.
“This is her opportunity to show that New Jersey takes this “blood money” seriously and will spend it with respect for the lives lost and for the families who continue to carry unimaginable grief every day,” said Elizabeth Burke Beaty, the founder of Sea Change Recovery Community Organization and Harm Reduction Center.
This story is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
