Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Opioid use, Maria linked
HUMACAO, Puerto Rico — Jose Carlos Laviena emptied his pockets, took off his shoes and waited to die.
He had just injected himself with a new type of heroin that his dealer was promoting, but the high was so strong that Laviena thought he had overdosed. The 35-year-old was preparing his body for how he wanted to be found.
“It’s truly something super strong,” he said, referring to what he believes was heroin mixed with fentanyl. “I felt death at that moment.”
Laviena’s near-fatal experience in an abandoned trailer in southeast Puerto Rico is one of many signs that the island hasn’t been spared from the opioid crisis that has plagued the U.S. mainland — a problem that seems to have grown as a result of a devastating hurricane.
The government is struggling to keep up, and failed to apply for a multimillion-dollar U.S. grant that advocates say could have helped save lives.
More than 600 fentanyl-related overdoses and 60 deaths were reported in Puerto Rico in 2017, largely before Hurricane Maria, up from 200 and eight the previous year. While that’s less than the crisis in some U.S. states, activists and experts say the problem appears to be expanding rapidly as use of fentanyl, the opioid blamed for much of the problem in the U.S., spreads more widely.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local nonprofit groups also say they believe that actual deaths and overdoses are far higher than official numbers indicate because the island’s government is not keeping proper count — and recently stopped even trying to count fatal overdoses because of financial constraints.
Despite that, the U.S. territory never applied for a $7.8 million award from Congress to help get people into treatment. That money was instead divided up among U.S. states.
Julissa Perez, spokesman for Puerto Rico’s Administration of Services for Mental Health and Addiction, said it was too difficult for the thinly staffed agency struggling with staff cuts to apply for the new grant while also coordinating work under earlier grants and programs.