Massive Opioid Settlement To Aid Camden County Youth With Mental Health

CAMDEN COUNTY, NJ — A chunk of the funding that Camden County is set to receive from a massive opioid settlement will support an array of mental-health and substance-use-disorder services, officials announced Tuesday. The county will use $1.2 million to fund the programs, which comes from its cut of a historic payout from Johnson & Johnson and other drug companies.

The initiatives also particularly aim to address the rise in reported mental-health issues among youth.

Johnson & Johnson and Camden County's three largest pharmaceutical distributors — McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen — finalized a $26 billion settlement in February 2022 to resolve claims that the companies helped fuel the opioid crisis. The corporations faced more than 3,000 lawsuits from states, counties and local governments.

New Jersey is set to receive $641 million from the settlement — that includes money for the state, all 21 counties and 241 cities and towns. Camden County will receive $32 million over the next 20 years, which includes payouts for several municipalities and more than 10,000 county residents.

With the $1.2 million, Camden County plans to roll out and expand programs related to substance-use disorders, while addressing the rise of children and teenagers getting diagnosed with mental-health issues. County officials plan to announce the rollout of new and expanded programs Wednesday.

"This is a step in the right direction when it comes to cleaning up the mess these corporations created with the opioid epidemic," said County Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. "Providing adequate resources to those struggling with mental health and substance use disorder is the key to healing the wounds left by the opioid crisis and together, with the right programming, we can create a happier and healthier community."

Awareness of youth mental-health struggles increased in recent years because of the challenges children have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. surgeon general deemed the issue a crisis in late 2021.

The issue, however, predates the pandemic. In the decade leading up to the COVID crisis, feelings of sadness and hopelessness, along with suicidal thoughts and behaviors, increased 40 percent among young people, according to the CDC.

Such struggles have impacted emergency rooms throughout the state, with Camden County relaying data that showed significant increases in youth seeking mental-health care from 2019-22:

• a 148 percent increase in pediatric ER psychiatry consults at Hackensack University Medical Center.
• a 32 percent rise in pediatric mental-health visits to Atlantic Health System's ERs.
• a 26 percent hike in mental-health consultations for youth at Virtual Health's emergency and inpatient facilities.

So far, the Camden County Board of Commissioners has used settlement funds to install multiple Naloxone boxes in every school, day care, library and house of worship in the county. The medication quickly reverses an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids.