NJ Opioid Crisis: Tragedy Worth Thinking Twice About

In New Jersey, a tragic story has sparked talk of a new law. A couple whose son was given opioid drugs after a surgery later died from a heroin overdose, leaving his family devastated and wondering: would it have happened without the doorway of initially prescribed drugs?

Some NJ lawmakers now want doctors to discuss the potential of addiction when prescribing certain medications to patients.

“You know,” says Sen. Joseph Vitale, the bill’s sponsor, “it’s not a huge waste of anyone’s time to have that conversation, and we’re not trying to instruct doctors how to practice medicine. We just think that patients ought to be informed of all the information that’s out there and be forward about potential consequences.”

Doctors in NJ, however, feel a little differently. Some opposing lawmakers are arguing that requiring this conversation to take place between doctor and patient is a step too far in the direction of telling doctors how to practice medicine.

Others are concerned that patients will perceive the conversation as a scare tactic and refuse the drug, regardless of how effective of a treatment it may be.

Claudine Leone, a director of government affairs for the NJ Academy of Family Physicians, is concerned because many doctors already have conversations about addiction with their patients, and the law will, in turn, remove the sincerity and meaning of these discussions.

“We want to make it practical,” she said. “We want to make it functional, practical and useful, so just randomly mandating a discussion, I don’t think, will have the impact that they’re intended to have.”

After all, physicians do not object to informing their patients about the potential dangers of addictive medications with their patients, Leone said, but they just want to practice their own discretion when doing so.