Welcome to Herointown, New Jersey's fourth largest city

New Jersey is home to at least 128,000 active heroin users, struggling in silence all around you.

The scourge of New Jersey's heroin crisis is closer than you know. 

Today, NJ Advance Media is publishing the result of a year-long reporting project, detailing heroin and opioid addiction in a state where it has run rampant. 

We're calling it Herointown, and it combines the most robust data ever assembled on the state's heroin population with original artwork, interactives and hundreds of stories from the people who are living through it  

So, come with us to Herointown.  You know someone there already, you just may not know it. 

The City

Herointown has a population of 128,000, and its growing faster than any city in the state.

The Dead

Heroin has been blamed for more than 5,000 deaths in New Jersey since 2004. Here is every one of them.

In their Own Words

An interactive collection of more than 200 stories from people who are or have lived through heroin addiction, be they users themselves or their loved ones.

By the numbers

Nine startling statistics that crystalize just how far the state's heroin problem has reached into day-to-day life in New Jersey.

Heroin's spread

This interactive map shows how heroin's scourge has exploded in New Jersey over the last 10 years.

About this project

Learn how this project came together.