The aftershocks could be felt in Huntington, W.Va., where police crime analysts found the crisis pivoted on a single day: A prescription drug epidemic before June 3, 2011, the day Gov. Rick Scott signed off on Florida crackdown laws, and a heroin epidemic immediately after.
South Florida Heroin Epidemic
The Post later in an award-winning investigation uncovered how these multimillion-dollar operations in Florida created the heroin epidemic that has swept the country. That series, Igniting the Heroin Epidemic, showed how rogue South Florida pain clinics nourished addiction and death in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and beyond. And once Florida authorities clamped down in 2011, those addicted to opioids turned to heroin.
These data help elucidate trends in the opioid epidemic at a regional level. There are differences between Pinellas and Pasco county; with the former having more fentanyl related drug deaths and the latter having more opioid related drug deaths over the six years analyzed. An interesting result is derived from the binary logistic regression. It is shown here that fentanyl and heroin tend to co-occur together. It is also shown that ethanol, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, and methadone do not co-occur with fentanyl related overdose cases. Notably, methadone has the strongest negative association with fentanyl related overdoses.
The heroin epidemic is one that has taken the lives of thousands of people nationwide over recent years. For many, what once began as a prescription painkiller addiction developed into a heroin addiction, as this illicit substance became easier to access and more affordable, all while producing the same effects as opioid-based painkillers.
"Florida ignited an epidemic through years and years of neglect and indifference," says Beall. "What we found was not only that Florida pill mill-supplied Oxy had ravaged those towns, but as soon as we turned off the spigot, then those towns were ravaged by heroin."
To address the national prescription opioid and heroin overdose epidemic, the Administration has been working to expand the use of tools that are effective in reducing drug use and overdose. These include evidence-based prevention programs, prescriber education, prescription drug monitoring, safe drug disposal, medication-assisted treatment, and the overdose reversal drug naloxone.
Despite regulatory, legislative and industry efforts, the opioid epidemic is the deadliest public health crisis America has ever faced. Opioids are now responsible for more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.
The statistics around the opioid epidemic are terrifying, but Recovery Boys explores the crisis on the ground floor. The 90-minute documentary, also a Netflix original, is one of the few that doesn't dramatize or wallow in the cyclic tragedy of ecstatic heroin highs, the scratching withdrawal pangs. Instead, it honestly follows four young men struggling to recover from opioid addiction over a year and a half at Jacob's Ladder, a farming-based recovery center in Aurora, West Virginia.
While opioid abuse has been on the rise throughout the United States, Florida and the other southeastern states have been hit especially hard. The following statistics are meant to demonstrate the scope of the opioid epidemic in Florida, as well as highlight some key contributing factors: 2ff7e9595c
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