Hunterdon County is very affluent and mostly rural, so it's probably not the area of New Jersey that comes to mind when you think about heroin abuse, but maybe it should be.

Heroin
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Almost four dozen people have been arrested in a 10-month heroin crackdown dubbed 'Operation Day Tripper.' New Jersey's Attorney General (AG) was asked about heroin use and abuse by a member of the State Senate Budget Committee.

"This goes to prescription drug abuse," says AG Jeff Cheisa. "Prescription drug abuse now kills more people than heroin and cocaine combined."

Young people get hooked on prescription pills because they pull them out of their parents' medicine cabinets and they take them to parties Chiesa says. He explains that there are 'pill parties' where kids fill bowls with unknown pills and everybody takes one or more out.

"It's very expensive to try to continue if you have an opioid addiction to continue purchasing opioids because of the cost," explains Chiesa. "The most natural, cheap alternative is heroin."

The tragic consequence of prescription pill abuse says Cheisa is that it kills people and others become heroin addicts because the drug is a cheap substitute that mimics the high people get from pills. This is happening in every corner of the state, not just our cities.

"That's a rural county (Hunterdon) that some may think is immune from heroin addiction," says Chiesa. "Couldn't be further from the truth."

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