Reports say heroin use and deaths have skyrocketed in Okaloosa County
By TOM McLAUGHLIN 315-4435 | @TomMnwfdn tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com
Okaloosa County, FL
In a year when historically high murder rates have plagued Okaloosa County and dominated the news, another scourge on the populace has gone largely unnoticed.
Heroin has reemerged as a drug of choice, and appears to be causing a high number of deaths.
At least 15 deaths have occurred in 2015 in Okaloosa County that are believed attributable to overdoses on heroin or fentanyl, a synthetic opiate. The true number is probably a good deal higher.
The city of Fort Walton Beach has reported seven overdose deaths since the beginning of the year, but Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office has documented seven more since just Sept. 1.
Niceville recorded its first suspected heroin overdose death on Halloween night, but the city’s records’ custodian found three more reports documenting non-fatal overdoses on what appeared to be heroin.
No heroin deaths have been documented in Crestview.
Target age group
Heroin and fentanyl abuse is not just a regional or even a statewide phenomenon. Heroin use across Florida is reaching levels that haven’t been seen since the 1980s, and the Centers for Disease Control says its popularity has more than doubled nationally in the past decade among adults between the ages of 18 and 24.
Fentanyl, the synthetic opiate, is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, the CDC reports. Florida ranked eighth nationally in the number of seizures brought on by fentanyl in 2014 with 183.
Fort Walton Beach Chief of Police Ted Litschauer said a common law enforcement theory for the proliferation of heroin centers on the successful crackdown on so-called pill mills.
“Users who may have been drawn to oxycodone are now seeking to satisfy their habit with heroin or fentanyl,” Litschauer said.
Before 2010, Florida had become widely known as a destination for prescription drug abusers.
Doctors across the state were distributing oxycodone, the powerful legal-by-prescription opiate, at pain clinics. Last year the Tampa Tribune reported that, in 2010, oxycodone caused 1,516 overdose deaths in Florida.
Pill mills crackdown
Lawmakers and law enforcement officers began cracking down on the pill mills four years ago, and they’ve made inroads. By 2013, the number of oxycodone overdose deaths had dropped to 279, according to the Tribune.
But as the pill mills have closed up, heroin dealers have moved in, offering a cheaper, though more dangerous, opiate alternative.
“Certainly we have seen an influx in, and increase in, the amount of heroin-related cases in our community,” said Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley. “Heroin appears to be the replacement for oxycodone and other opiates.”
With the departure of hundreds of pain centers and a huge decrease in the number of pills being shipped to Florida, oxycodone pills can fetch as much as $80 on the black market, according to the Behavioral Health of Palm Beaches website.
Heroin can be had for about $15 a dose.
Oxycodone, while a proven killer, was handed out in prescribed weights and dosages, so the user to some degree knew what he was getting. That made the pills safer than heroin, Litschauer said.
“With heroin, the quantity is fixed by the user,” he said.
No particular demographic documented
Call history records documenting Okaloosa County’s seven deaths since September provide no indication that heroin use is more prevalent among any particular demographic. Deaths have occurred in Destin, Baker, Fort Walton Beach, Shalimar and Niceville.
They’ve gone largely unremarked upon in a historic year of violence that has seen eight confirmed homicides and three other violent deaths that could eventually be classified as homicides.
Though the ages of the heroin overdose victims are not provided in all the reports obtained by the Daily News, in most cases the deceased appear to be between the ages of 24 to 35.
The report compiled in the Niceville case indicates something called a “heroin kit” was found at the scene where the body was recovered.
On Sept. 10, two women overdosed and died together inside a residence at the Country Breeze Mobile Home Park on Beverly Street in Fort Walton Beach.
“Treat it like a crime scene, it’s probably going to be an overdose,” the call history report from that heartbreaking incident said.
Treatment center missing in county
Not every heroin user that overdoses winds up dead, of course, and victims who survive their own negligence tend to wind up in an emergency room for treatment.
Okaloosa County has no substance abuse treatment facility. Overdose patients are referred from Fort Walton Beach Medical Center to 12 Oaks Recovery Center in Navarre, according to hospital spokeswoman Denise Kendust.
Kell Elliott, the executive director of JourneyPure Emerald Coast, oversees a Fort Walton Beach rehabilitation center and a treatment center in Panama City Beach.
The treatment centers offer a place for detoxification and substance abuse management, Elliott said.
He said he has witnessed an increase in the number of patients needing treatment for opiate addiction in both Okaloosa and Bay counties.
“I do believe in Okaloosa County there’s a definite need for a treatment center,” Elliott said. “I’m working on it.”