Common use of Opioids Clause in Contracts

Opioids. In 2018, the CDC reported that drug overdoses killed 63,632 Americans in 2016 with nearly two-thirds of these deaths (66%) involved a prescription or illicit opioid. In New Jersey, heroin and opioid use has increased to epidemic proportions. One cause of this crisis is the overabundance of prescription opioids, with an estimated four out of five new heroin users beginning their addiction by misusing prescription pain killers. Unfortunately, sports activities, accidents or other causes may also lead to injury and, in rare cases, result in pain that is severe or long-lasting enough to require a prescription opioid painkiller. According to the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, about a third of young people studied obtained pills from their own previous prescriptions (i.e., an unfinished prescription used outside of a physician’s supervision), and 83 percent of adolescents had unsupervised access to their prescription medications. Nationally, it is estimated that an American dies every 19 minutes from an overdose of heroin or prescription opioids. Between 2014 and 2015, drug overdose deaths increased by nearly 22 percent, and nearly 1,600 people lost their lives to narcotics in New Jersey. This scenario has played out in New Jersey and across the country without regard to race, gender, age, or social class. Another cause of this crisis is the early use by children of CDS and other illicit substances, with evidence showing that if a child tries any drug by the age of 13, he or she has a 70% probability of developing an addiction by the age of 20. An estimated 20% of adolescents who have current prescriptions for opioid medications report using those medications intentionally to get high or increase the effects of alcohol or other drugs.