DEA report: Heroin, fentanyl overdoses plague most of U.S.; Fla. battles marijuna, meth
This is Pam Bondi’s political ad when she ran for re-election TWO YEARS AGO… BRAGGING how the judicial system in Florida had “taken care of” all the illegal substance abuse… Of course, she has two more years in office as FL AG and she is “capped out” of running again… It has been reported that she is in the running for White House DRUG CZAR… god help us if she is picked !
Orlando police are worried about every drug that hurts the community, but their focus lately has been on stopping two of the deadliest: heroin and illicit fentanyl.
A report released Tuesday by the Drug Enforcement Administration shows they aren’t alone.
The yearly National Drug Threat Assessment compiles survey data from nearly 1,500 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. to provide a picture of the country’s drug abuse and trafficking problem.
Heroin and the growing nationwide opioid epidemic, exacerbated by illicit fentanyl, highlighted this year’s report.
Locally, the numbers have been steadily increasing, and in 2015 Florida saw the highest number of opioid deaths in more than a decade.
In Orange and Osceola counties alone, 67 people died of a fentanyl overdose and 105 from heroin, according to a statewide medical examiner’s report.
Orlando Police Department Deputy Chief Robert Anzueto said detectives have recently seen an uptick in fentanyl use and overdoses. That worries him, he said, because fentanyl is often smuggled in from overseas and users don’t know how much, or what exactly they’re getting.
He said heroin is one thing, but when dealers mix it with fentanyl to make it cheaper, it becomes an even deadlier substance. “People have no idea what they’re ingesting,” he said.
About 129 people died each day nationwide in 2014 from a drug overdose and more than half of those were opioid or heroin related, according to the DEA.
The epidemic spread across much of the country during the past few years and has hit the Northeast and Midwest exceptionally hard, according to the report. Nationally, heroin overdose deaths more than tripled between 2010 and 2014.
Anzueto said detectives are constantly working leads and using various investigative techniques to combat the problem, and the department’s drug unit recently got two new detectives to help take on additional cases.
All of the officers were also outfitted with Narcan, a nasal-spray drug that counteracts the effects of an opioid overdose, this summer. Officers have had to use it a handful of times since, he said.
Opioids aren’t the only drugs law enforcement agencies across the country are focusing on, though. The DEA report revealed cocaine and prescription pills are still readily available across much of the country, despite drops in usage.
And agencies, especially many in the southern U.S., also worry about marijuana and methamphetamine. The DEA report showed more than 40 percent of the agencies in Florida that responded to the survey reported those two drugs as the biggest threats to their communities.
“Any drug that can cause devastation to your city no matter if it’s marijuana, crack cocaine, cocaine opiates, heroin fentanyl — they’re all a concern,” Anzueto said. “And our job is to prevent and educate and eradicate.”
sallen@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5417
Filed under: General Problems
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