View Comments Doctors in New Jersey helped 33 terminally ill patients end their lives in 2020, the first full year the state's medical aid-in-dying law was in effect. The 33 patients included 21 men and 12 women between the ages of 36 and 90, according to a state Department of Health report released Friday. Thirty patients died in their own homes, the others died in someone else's home or a nursing home. Most — 73% of the patients — suffered from cancer, the state's second-leading cause of death in the general population behind heart disease. The state data indicates steady use of the law since Aug. 2019, when it became legal for doctors to prescribe life-ending medication to residents with a terminal diagnosis. Since then, 45 residents have taken lethal medication prescribed under the law.