Heroin use skyrockets in the Panhandle and nationwide
Kevin Robinson, krobinson4@pnj.com
Pensacola, FL
Heroin is a growing problem across the U.S., with usage of the drug increasing among both men and women, most age groups and all income levels.
Florida is no exception, and the state legislature has appropriated $5 million to provide a free treatment option for citizens trying to kick the habit.
Road to Recovery, a substance abuse counseling program under the umbrella of Baptist Health Care's Lakeview Center, was one of the first clinics in the state to roll out the treatment program. The organization is using a grant from the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association (FADDA) to provide citizens with Vivitrol, a once-monthly injectable medicine that helps people fight their dependency on alcohol and opioids such as heroin and painkillers.
“This grant approved medication that’s been pretty cost prohibitive for many people that abuse opiates,” said Dustin Perry, admissions director at Road to Recovery.
Opiates – which includes painkillers like Vicodin, OxyContin and Percocet – were chronically overprescribed in Florida a few years ago, according to the Florida Office of the Attorney General. In 2010, 98 of the top 100 oxycodone dispensing physicians in the nation were located in this state, and seven Floridians died each day because of prescription pill overdoses.
The state began cracking down on “pill mills” in 2011, making prescription drugs more expensive and more difficult to obtain on the street. Over the past few years, people have increasingly turned to heroin as an alternative to pills because the illicit drug is often cheaper and provides a comparable high.
In an interview late last year, 25-year-old Ethan Brighenti – a client of the Road to Recovery program – said he had struggled with addiction since being prescribed Lortab for a sports injury when he was 12. He said drugs became an escape not just from pain, but from everyday problems.
"If you didn't have the coping tools, our answer to everything was to get high," he said of himself and many of his friends.
Brighenti said he had been clean for several months after being referred to Road to Recovery through drug court.
However, he said at the height of his addiction he was using about a gram of heroin a day. Part of the reason was price, with Brighenti estimating the street cost of prescription pills at $35 to $40 each, where as single use amount of heroin was about $20 to $25.
Brighenti also said heroin had become easy to find, compared to a few years ago when it was largely unavailable locally.
The rise of heroin has been documented all over the country. Heroin use has more than doubled nationwide in the past decade, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The drug caused 12 deaths in the Pensacola area in 2014, according to the state Medical Examiners Commission drug report. That number may not seem alarming on its own, but there were only nine heroin-related deaths total over the previous 14 years.
On Friday, the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced in a news release that Escambia and Santa Rosa counties have been added as members of the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in order to combat drug trafficking and reduce associated violent crime. Because of the proximity to Interstate 10 and U.S. 98, both counties are situated on known drug trafficking corridors.
As part of the Gulf Coast HIDTA – which includes counties and parishes from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi and is one of 28 nationwide – Northwest Florida will receive additional resources and support in addressing the source and supply of drugs coming into the area.
“Heroin, specifically in the past few years, has picked up a lot,” Perry said. “Over the past two years, I see it in about half the population I work with.”
Larry Davis, executive director the Friary – Lakeview’s long-standing residential drug treatment program in Gulf Breeze – said heroin is a very difficult drug to quit cold turkey.
"It's can be like having three to four weeks of heavy flu-like symptoms," Davis said. "It’s like having West Nile virus. That’s why a lot of people come into residential treatment.”
Vivitrol, a brand name for the drug Naltrexone, helps people fight the craving for opiates and alcohol by blocking the receptors that make the substances rewarding. Because the medication is only administered once a month, people don’t have to make a daily choice about whether to use it. It also doesn’t have the addictive quality of methadone and other drugs.
The downside is the medication is usually expensive out of pocket. A one-month dosage can cost between $500 and $1,200, Perry said.
The goal of the Vivitrol program is to remove the cost barrier and allow people to focus on getting better, officials said.
“The idea is you can get more people in out-patient care, and it’s cheaper for everyone than a month of residential care,” Perry said. “It helps people get back into workforce, and you wouldn’t know someone was on it unless they told you.”
In Florida, a number of health care plans cover Vivitrol treatment including Amerigroup, HealthEase, Sunshine State Health Plan and United Healthcare.
Both Perry and Davis stressed that the medication isn’t a miracle drug, but that it gave people who were genuinely trying a better chance of overcoming their substance dependencies. The Vivitrol program is offered as a supplement to counseling and therapy services that address the psychological, emotional and behavioral issues that lead to addiction.
“The therapy piece is the most important,” Perry said. “It’s really more important than the drug itself.”
Brighenti agreed.
"For me, going to meetings, working the steps, going to Pathways, it all helps lead me in the right direction to get clean," Brighenti said. "It helps me deal with real life as it comes instead of trying to throw dope on it ... I've had quite a few friends die this year. If my story can save one life, it makes everything worth it."
Heroin related deaths in District 1 (Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties) by year
2000: 0
2001: 1
2002: 0
2003: 0
2004: 0
2005: 0
2006: 1
2007: 0
2008: 1
2009: 2
2010: 0
2011: 0
2012: 1
2013: 3
2014: 12
2014 local heroin deaths by age
18 or younger: 0
18-25: 2
26-34: 7
35-50: 1
51 or older: 2
Data provided in Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons by Florida Medical Examiners 2014 Annual Report
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