Advocates want more urgency for opioid crisis

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott was flanked by law enforcement officials this week as he highlighted a bill he signed imposing harsher sentences for traffickers of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller that has led to a surge of overdoses and deaths throughout the state.

Police departments have had to deal with the effects of Florida’s opioid addiction epidemic as overdoses and deaths have surged in recent years. Scott and state officials have responded by increasing prison time for traffickers and securing discounts from pharmaceutical companies for anti-opioid drugs that officers responding to overdose calls can carry with them.

But substance abuse and mental health advocates say those efforts, while helpful, only address the fallout of the opioid crisis and do nothing to prevent or stop drug abuse.

“We’ve been calling for a comprehensive statewide plan to address the opioid epidemic,” said Mark Fontaine, executive director of the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association. “Everybody has got to be ... all working together, pulling from all of their different respective angles to address this.”

The opioid crisis has spread nationwide and Florida is one of the hardest-hit states. There were more than 22,000 deaths nationwide involving prescription opioids in 2015, an increase of more than 13 percent over the prior year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State numbers for 2015, the last full year for which data are available, show nearly 3,900 of them were in Florida.

Those numbers are likely to rise, Fontaine said, but what is really needed is an approach that involves more resources for addiction treatment centers and public awareness campaigns.

“We’re seeing a lot of people show up in the emergency room, and there are not very good bridges between the emergency room and treatment,” Fontaine said.

As overdoses have surged, the resources of police departments, hospitals and treatment centers have been stretched, putting a strain on budgets. In Orange County alone, there were 191 opioid-related deaths in 2015, Medicaid charges related to opioids increased from $14.3 million in 2010 to $42.3 million in 2015 and charges stemming from children born addicted to opioids jumped from $9.7 million to $22.2 million in that span.

Scott has acted on the crisis, declaring a public health emergency in May — three months after Democrats called for it — that freed up $27 million in federal funds aimed at addiction treatment and medication to thwart overdoses.

The bill he signed last month, HB 477, takes effect Oct. 1 and imposes mandatory sentences of at least three years for anyone possessing four or more grams of fentanyl, a powerful prescription drug that has become more popular in recent years and a major reason for the opioid scourge. The mandatory sentence rises to 15 years for 14 grams and 25 years for 28 grams.

“We’re going to do everything possible to help our communities,” Scott said this week during a ceremony in Sarasota to highlight the bill.

In addition, Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April the state reached a deal with two pharmaceutical companies, Amphastar and Adapt Pharma, to allow law enforcement and emergency response agencies to cheaply purchase naxolone, a drug that reverses the effects of opioids that can be life-saving.

Thomas Duddy, a spokesman for Adapt Pharma, said 34 agencies in Florida have bought 8,812 units (each unit contains two doses) of Narcan, a brand name for the naxolone drug, for $75 per unit, saving $440,600 off of the regular $125 price.

Duddy said he couldn’t release which agencies and a spokesman for Bondi said he didn’t have a list of those taking advantage of the agreement. A spokesman for Amphastar did not return an email seeking comment, but the deal with the state allowed agencies to receive a $6 rebate on purchases of naxolone.