Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey Webinar to Examine Stigma's Impact on the Opioid Crisis

PDFNJ and New Jersey Attorney General's Office to Host 4^th Webinar of 2022

MILLBURN, N.J., April 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage the nation, stigma has remained a major barrier to treatment, recovery and reshaping approaches to solving the crisis. Experts will discuss the ways in which stigma affects efforts to address the opioid epidemic and strategies to break down its impact in the next chapter of the 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 event is being held in collaboration with the Opioid Education Foundation of America.

The webinar, "Combating the Stigma of Opioid Addiction," will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 28, in collaboration with Fairleigh Dickinson University. The presentation will feature Dr. Emily Einstein of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Dr. Edouard Coupet of Yale School of Medicine; and Celina Levy, Executive Director of the Governor's Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (GCADA).  

"The stigma of addiction is a harmful barrier to helping individuals with substance use disorder and in tackling the opioid epidemic on a broader level," PDFNJ Executive Director Angelo Valente said. "Our hope is that this webinar will provide the audience with a better understanding of not only the science behind addiction but also the ways in which attitudes and language choice can make a difference in addressing this crisis."

This webinar will be the fourth in the 2022 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series.

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. The statewide single-day initiative is organized by PDFNJ and The Community Coalition for a Safe & Healthy Morris, in cooperation with the New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services and GCADA. The goal of the day is to mobilize the prevention and treatment communities, community leaders and concerned citizens to raise awareness of the potential for dependency on prescribed pain medicine, as well as their link to heroin and fentanyl use in the state.

SOURCE Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey