Number of Narcan Doses Raises Drug Concerns at New Jersey Prisons
Illicit drugs have become so widespread at New Jersey’s prisons that staff administered Narcan, an overdose-reversing drug, an average of more than once a day in recent years, according to an annual report released by the state Department of Corrections in February 2026. In 2025, guards and medical staff used Narcan 406 times in 2025 and nearly 540 times the year before that; and between 2018 and 2024, twenty-two prisoners died from overdoses.
While a Narcan dose does not always indicate a drug overdose, prisoner rights advocates point out that the high numbers indicate that the DOC isn’t keeping drugs out of prison, even though the state blocked physical mail and switched to a mail-scanning system in 2023 on the basis of preventing drug-smuggling. “In one sense, it’s like three cheers to the DOC for considering life-saving interventions,” Rev. J. Amos Caley, an activist with New Jersey Prison Justice Watch told The New Jersey Monitor. “But I can’t help but ask the question if paper mail and care packages have been more or less summarily denied, how is it that quantities of these illicit drugs are coming into the prison at such rates that somebody can overdose on them?”
Caley added that preventing overdoses should involve more than Narcan and include addressing the problems that drive prisoners to use drugs, such as ensuring better access to rehabilitation services. Instead of providing this type of support, however, the DOC has a record of overly disciplining prisoners. In 2023, as a separate report revealed, more than 200 prisoners were placed in isolation for drug possession in the first four months of that year.
Additional source: The New Jersey Monitor
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