Kevin Riordan: Veto of N.J.'s 911 Good Samaritan bill disappoints backer

Patty DiRenzo describes how she felt Friday when she heard that Gov. Christie had vetoed New Jersey's "911 Good Samaritan" legislation.

"It was like I'd been punched in the stomach," the Blackwood legal secretary says.

The measure, for which DiRenzo, 53, had lobbied for two years, would spare those who summon emergency aid for drug-overdose victims from potentially facing drug charges themselves.

The proposal needs more scrutiny, according to Christie, a former federal prosecutor who has shown similar caution about establishing the state's medical-marijuana program.

The governor's conditional-veto message for the Good Samaritan measure suggests the state Division of Criminal Justice "study the issue of drug-overdose reporting" for 18 months and recommend "a comprehensive approach."

DiRenzo insists her son, Sal Marchese, might still be alive had such a law been in effect Sept. 23, 2010, when he was found dead of an overdose in a parked car in North Camden.

Marchese, who had recently become a first-time father, was 26. He had been battling heroin addiction for several years.

It's not uncommon for users to share drugs, and DiRenzo is convinced her son was not alone before his death - and might have survived the overdose had his companion called 911 for help.

She also thinks of him as an angel and maintains several Facebook pages about him as well as the 911 Good Samaritan campaign.

"I'm not going to stop fighting," DiRenzo says. "I'm passionate because it is personal to me. No one should be afraid to call 911 for help."

There were 1,000 drug deaths in New Jersey last year, compared with 884 in 2010, the state medical examiner has reported. About 700 New Jerseyans fatally overdosed on illegal drugs in 2009, according to Roseanne Scotti, director of the New Jersey office of the national Drug Policy Alliance.

The state's 911 Good Samaritan bill was approved in the summer by bipartisan majorities in the Assembly and Senate, and is similar to laws in New York and 10 other states.

"We thought the governor might have issues with some parts of the bill, but we didn't expect what amounts to a full-on veto," Scotti says.

"There was no opposition. We had 30 or 40 organizations supporting it, and many families, like Patty's," she adds. "I'm just heartbroken for these families. They just don't understand."

I don't get it either, given the increase in heroin and prescription-drug addiction in New Jersey, particularly among the young.

As my colleague Barbara Boyer reported Tuesday, experts from the New Jersey Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse and other organizations believe the state must expand the availability of treatment to combat what they describe, accurately, as an epidemic.

Nevertheless, addicts are often viewed as weak or bad people. Not as sick people.

To his credit, Christie has been unequivocal in asserting that addiction should be treated as a disease. Which it is.

His administration is phasing in a program to provide mandatory rehabilitation treatment for low-level offenders who also are addicts.

All of which makes the governor's veto even more inexplicable to people like Kathleen "Kass" Foster, a National Park resident who lost a son to heroin and founded Parent-to-Parent, a support and advocacy group.

"Christie is doing the wrong thing," Foster says. "In the 18 months they're doing the study, more people will be buried."

Treatment does work; recovery from addiction (not just to drugs, but to booze, food, other delights) is always possible.

It's not easy, but it can be done. Trust me on that one.

Addicted people need help. They also need to take responsibility for their mistakes, and for their lives.

But they can't do that if they're dead.