Florida Struggling With Drug Overdoses as it Nears Top of the List
By Space Coast Daily // November 24, 2022
The USA is suffering from an opioid crisis, with more drug overdoses than ever before, and Florida is a state suffering more than most.
The statistics are alarming, and while some people can afford to send those loved ones suffering to some form of drug and alcohol treatment centre, many people aren’t getting the help they need and becoming another addition to an overwhelmingly heartbreaking statistic.
Over 93,000 people died from a drug overdose in the country in 2020, up nearly 30% on 2019 and there’s been a steady increase ever since, with the likes of the pandemic and cost of living crisis being a heavy factor in that.
However, that percentage increase is even larger in Florida, with a 37% increase on 2019’s figures and many people along the Space Coast among those to suffer. The Sunshine State as a whole is behind only California, with over seven and a half thousand people losing their lives to drug overdoses according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Brevard County has been particularly hit by the current opioid crisis, with a huge bust earlier in the year by County officials, which saw a total of over 50 people arrested in a major drugs raid worth over $180,000, with the County Sheriff, Wayne Ivey claiming the volume of the seizure was “enough fentanyl to kill everyone in Brevard County.”
In the county alone, over 172 people have died from a drug overdose over the last two years, while there were over 2,000 non fatal drug overdoses, and the attorney general has made it clear they are going after the corporations who cause the crisis as well as the street-level dealers to try and rid the drug from the streets.
In the country moves are also now being made to provide Narcan nasal spray kits to those who are taking fentanyl. Narcan is a drug that will reverse drug overdoses of fentanyl and it’s an important step that is also being rolled out in many other parts of the country, including California.
It’s a similar story in other parts of Florida, with the greater Tampa Bay area launching Project Opioid, in a bid to lessen the 1,200 deaths reported in the city due to opioid usage in 2020.
The reason the state of Florida is particularly struggling is due to it being a port of entry for drugs, with a large number of international airports, ports and long stretches of coastline. Tackling that entry is key and with more people dying than ever before, it’s certainly a crisis in the state.
