Addressing the opioid epidemic
Maxwell: Seminole tries to pioneer programs to deal with addiction.
5.5 billion.
That’s how many opioid pain pills were dispensed to Floridians from 2006 to 2012, according to newly released federal data from The Washington Post.
That’s more than 35 pills every year for every single resident of the state.
The numbers, released for the first time, are staggering. So is the loss of life.
Nationally, more than 42,000 people died of opioid-related causes in 2016 alone.
That’s a death every 12 minutes.
They were people like Daniel and Heather Kelsey — a married couple found dead on the side of Interstate 4 in December 2016. Their three young children were still in the car, confused and crying.
Countless more lives have been wrecked — including the lives of inmates in a new opioid-treatment program at the Seminole County Jail.
Eleven of them sat in a circle on Monday afternoon, discussing how they hope to end their drug dependency and regain control of their lives.
The men are part of Seminole Sheriff Dennis Lemma’s attempt to address this deadly plague.
Lemma is the head of a statewide effort to tackle opioid abuse. And he’s trying to pioneer programs in Seminole — including the jail program and a first-of-its kind treatment and assessment center — that other counties can copy.
Lemma is hopeful. But he’s also frustrated. And angry. None of this ever needed to happen.
The story of how we got here is ugly and complicated. But the Post concluded the root motive was simple: “The drug industry — the pill manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers — found it profitable to flood some of the most vulnerable communities in America with billions of painkillers.”
Before long, doctors were prescribing some of the most addictive substances on the planet for everything from sprained
ankles to wrenched backs.
Moms, dads, daughters and sons — people who had no history of substance abuse — were suddenly taking drugs 50 times more powerful than morphine for basic aches and pains.
Lemma — tapped by Attorney General Ashley Moody to address the issue — gets irritated when he hears people casually dismiss the addictive powers of these drugs.
“I’ve heard some of the most ridiculous comments by some of the most ‘important’ people,” Lemma said. “One said ‘Maybe these deaths were just natural selection.’ They don’t understand.”
Florida played a key role in helping the scourge spread. Officials turned blind eyes to the pill mills that turned the Sunshine State into the nation’s premier pill dealer.
By 2010, 90 of the nation’s top 100 opioid prescribers were Florida doctors.
The state belatedly cracked down. But Pandora’s box was already open. Even today, the corpse count continues to climb.
In Lemma’s own Seminole County, drug deaths climbed from 63 in 2016 to 82 last year.
Part of the problem is that the drugs are sometimes laced with deadly doses of fentanyl — a synthetic opioid far more potent than heroin.
Some of the concoctions, brewed up in foreign labs, are so toxic that first responders now use protective clothing when surveying overdose scenes.
Still, Lemma says the hardest work takes place after police arrive on the scene.
Seminole’s jail inmates are grateful to be in the opioid unit. I’ve toured a number of jails. Gratitude isn’t an emotion you normally see much. But here, inmates get hope. They
work with a counselor, learn about journaling and meditation and make plans for new places to live when they get out. They know they can’t fall back into old habits.
As they chatted Monday, most say they genuinely believe they’ll stay clean when they get out. That may not sound like much. (It’s just talk right now, after all.) But it is a big deal. Most said they never even tried to stay off drugs before.
This program has given them resources, techniques and allies they’ve never had. The jail staff really seems to be rooting for them.
Still, inmates are a captive audience. Seminole is also setting up a treatment and assessment center — a complex with as many as 60 beds near the county’s criminal-justice complex.
Some people may enter for treatment as part of a court order or diversion program. But Lemma envisions the center as a place that Central Floridians will voluntarily seek out — a place for frustrated parents, spouses and individuals who don’t know where else to turn.
Lemma says he can’t do this alone. He’s working with business and healthcare leaders and hopes to have the center opened early next year. The drug companies should help, too.
None of these treatment programs are about being “soft on crime,” Lemma said, stressing that his office still goes hard on violent crime and full-bore after those dealing deadly drugs.
Instead, he said, it’s about realizing that he and his staff can’t arrest their way to a solution.
“One thing I often tell people to remember,” he said, “is that there is not a person who is born wanting to die with a dirty needle in their arm.”