Camden County Announces Results Of New Drug Treatment Program

More than 100 Camden County residents who were arrested for minor drug related offenses during the first week of June were connected with treatment services under a grant-funded program dubbed Operation Helping Hand, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said on Thursday.

The prosecutor's office and the Camden City Metro Police Department ran the program with two local nonprofit groups: The Center for Family Services Living Proof Recovery Center and Opioid Overdose Recovery Program (OORP), from Voorhees. Peer specialists were on hand at the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office all week to successfully navigate these individuals into a variety of treatment programs and recovery support services.

The program is funded through a $58,000 grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services that is administered by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.

The weeklong initiative involved law enforcement officers arresting individuals attempting to purchase heroin — or, in some cases, other narcotics — at open-air drug markets. Those buyers who were arrested were then immediately offered addiction intervention solutions. This is the first time Operation Helping Hand was conducted in Camden County.

During the operation, 126 people were arrested for minor drug related offenses. Those with substance abuse problems were offered a variety of treatment programs and recovery support services. Out of that group, 17 entered into inpatient detox treatment, 25 entered intensive outpatient or community-based support program and seven entered into medically assisted treatment.

Even if the person accepts help, criminal charges are not dropped. However, police make every effort to place that person on the path to recovery, according to the prosecutor’s office. The judges in their cases are told about their rehabilitation efforts.

Between 2015 and 2018, more than 900 people died due to a drug overdose in Camden County, according to the prosecutor’s office. During that same period, police officers across Camden County distributed the lifesaving overdose-reversal drug naloxone more than 8,200 times.

Kim Govak and John Thompson, peer specialists from Living Proof Recovery Center believe “each individual is important” and that “if you can help one individual to heal, you can heal that individual’s family and, subsequently, their community.”

“Fear of arrest will not deter someone struggling with addiction,” Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Chief Bill Townsend said. “We recognize that collaboration between the different disciplines is necessary if we are going to have any kind of success combating this crisis.”

Last year, Camden County announced it would experiment with Gloucester Township's Project SAVE (Substance Abuse Visionary Effort) program countywide as a pilot program. That program offers people who appear in drug court access to treatment by providing a licensed social services professional in the courtroom. Read more here: Project SAVE, Started In Gloucester Twp., To Be Tested Countywide