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New court, heroin antidote among tools Bergen prosecutor says will be used in drug war

SPECIAL REPORT: Besides announcing the arrests of hundreds of heroin users and dealers, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli today unveiled what he said are other initiatives that he considers just as vital to addressing the ongoing opiate epidemic.

Photo Credit: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
Photo Credit: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
Photo Credit: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

The first is a new court only for heroin defendants. The second involves police use of a heroin antidote that could help reduce the number of overdose deaths.

Defendants arrested for heroin use ordinarily have charges downgraded to Municipal Court, then enter a diversion program in which charges are dismissed after six months if they stay clear of the law.

Dozens of police chiefs attended today’s news conference in Paramus (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

However, Molinelli said Superior Court Assignment Judge Peter Doyne has given approval for pursuing “a new idea in how we do this.”

The new court will be more specialized, with better resources for heroin treatment, the prosecutor said.

“This program will require supervision for two — if not three — years before we grant a conditional dismissal,” Molinelli said during a news conference at his Paramus office attended by, among others, prosecutors from Passaic and Morris county and police chiefs from dozens of communities.

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YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: The arrests of more than 325 people in North Jersey were announced today as part of a joint anti-heroin initiative in Paterson spearheaded by Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli with his counterparts from Passaic and Morris counties. READ MORE….

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Participants in the new court will be referred to alcohol and dependency programs, some of them out of state, where they will focus on “how families cope with the stress of living with an addict and how they pay for the recovery treatment that’s necessary,” he said.

“We recognize that recovering from a heroin addiction is a fail, win, fail, win process,” Molinelli said. “We have to take a much different approach….The last thing we want is for most of these users to be saddled with a criminal conviction.”

“In two years, I think we’ll have better results,” the prosecutor said, adding that it would “allow us to measure progress more accurately.”

In addition, Molinelli said police officers are being trained to administer a highly-touted injectable heroin antidote, which should help reduce the number of overdose deaths.

Authorities in Bergen, Passaic and Morris counties said they have arrested a combined 385 people for heroin-related crimes in the last year.

Each has also prosecuted at least one defendant in that period for “strict liability for a heroin-induced death.”

In three of the cases, defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to five years each in prison.

Bergen has three active cases, one against a man who authorities said mixed lethal drugs — including Fentanyl — into what proved to be a fatal mixture he gave to someone else.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli at today’s news conference in Paramus
(STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

Such cases require “a very difficult standard of proof,” Morris County Prosecutor Fredric Knapp noted.

“It’s difficult but it’s a tool we can use to trace back to some of these dealers,” Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes said.

“We are all working towards eliminating the notion of a heroin addict in an alley with a needle in their arm,” she added. “We are sharing with parents and community leaders because the results are surprising.

“It’s mature adults, educated people, women and men,” Valdes said. “Some of the overdose deaths are in the 40 – 50 age group.”

Valdes said there have been 20 overdose deaths in Passaic County in the last four months, while Molinelli said Bergen has tallied 17 overdose deaths so far this year. Morris has had seven, Knapp said.

The 27 heroin deaths in Bergen in 2013 set a record that doubled the rate from the previous year.

Molinelli urged parents and other community members to get involved, saying heroin addiction springs from prescription pill abuse — and that those drugs in most cases first come from the home.

“They start a pill addiction and they can’t maintain it because it’s too expensive, so they switch to heroin,” he said.

STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

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