There have been 120 drug overdose deaths in Ocean County, with 93 of them have been related to heroin.
TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie and former Gov. Jim McGreevey Tuesday are expected to announce a medicine shown to help addicts break their dependence on opioid drugs will be offered to inmates at the jail in Ocean Country - one of the regions in the state hardest hit by drug overdoses.
Inmates will be given Vivitrol, the brand-name drug that blocks the neurotransmitters in the brain which produce the euphoric feeling associated with using heroin and other opiates, McGreevey told NJ Advance Media.
The treatments will continue after they leave the jail to help them maintain their sobriety, said McGreevey, the chairman of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, a nonprofit that works with employers and social service agencies that helps prisoners in Jersey City, Newark, Paterson and Toms River to stay sober and out of jail.
The introduction of medically assisted treatment to the jail is the latest in a series of strategies the Christie administration, law enforcement and treatment providers have used to contain the widespread addiction to heroin, fentanyl and prescribed drugs like oxycontin. Other steps include making the drug Narcan widely available because it can halt and reverse drug overdoses.
"This is a big step," McGreevey said. "We are providing for medically assisted treatment within the jail, and will be continued as people return to general society."
"The pernicious quality of fentanyl - it is 50 times more addictive than heroin - makes medically assisted treatment an important instrument against the battle against addiction," McGreevey said.
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An analysis by NJ Advance Media last year showed that the heroin overdose death rate in New Jersey was more than triple the national rate. It eclipsed homicide, suicide, car accidents and AIDS as a cause of death in the state.
There have been 120 drug overdose deaths in Ocean County, with 93 of them have been related to heroin, McGreevey said. The county is on track to far surpass last year's death total of 118 people last year, he said.
Christie and McGreevey will be joined at the Statehouse 11:30 a.m. press conference by Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato, who has launched the Angel program that allows addicts to to turn themselves in to the police department with the opportunity to get placed in a treatment facility or to establish a treatment plan.
Other participants include a client in the reentry program, and a representative from Woodhaven Lumber in Ocean County, which has hired 13 people who left jail and were placed by the reentry program.
Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.