Carfentanil, pills at the heart of Manatee’s opioid epidemic

As the slow tides of change and action roll on, the conversation about Manatee County’s opioid epidemic hasn’t stopped.

In the Pier 22 ballroom crowded with Manatee County lawyers Wednesday afternoon, among silverware clattering with plates, a panel of five moderated by Circuit Judge Diana Moreland discussed for about 45 minutes on how drugs have invaded — or, rather, persisted in — the Gulf Coast.

The panel included representatives in a number of fields: state Rep. Julio Gonzalez, R-Fla.; Drug Court graduate Adina Bridges; Drug Court Director Alfred James; Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Todd Shear; and Drug Free Manatee Executive Director Sharon Kramer.

According to Shear, carfentanil is today the main cause of overdose deaths. The synthetic opioid is 10,000 times stronger than morphine and is capable of killing someone with just three granules.

Since 2015, Shear said the sheriff’s office has responded to 2,538 overdoses; 260 people died. And of the 1,346 children sheltered in Manatee County, more than one-third of them were removed because of substance abuse issues within the family.

Kramer said she believes an important part of combating the issue is education, whether it’s letting others know about the Good Samaritan law, which protects someone who calls 911 because of an overdose, or teaching children in school about medicine. But the $27 million that Florida will receive in federal funding to fight the opioid epidemic will go toward substance abuse treatment and buying the overdose antidote naloxone.

“We’re not getting any money in prevention,” Kramer said.

Although Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation to shut down pill mills and curb doctor shopping, which is when a person visits many doctors to get multiple prescriptions for pain medication, Shear said the problems persist.

Yet Rep. Gonzalez, also an orthopedic surgeon whose district includes south Sarasota County, was hopeful of the legislature’s charge on the issue. Two important drug-related bills have made it to the governor’s desk for a signature: one would impose regulations on “sober homes,” and the second that would toughen penalties for trafficking of fentanyl and carfentanil.

“Pain medicines, and even legal or illegal, have significant consequences,” he said. Addiction to painkillers can take hold within three days.

Adina Bridges, also on the panel, would know. She graduated from the county’s Drug Court program in 2011, but not without a fight. During the height of pill mills, she said she was doctor shopping, shooting up drugs and trying to rid her emotions.

But then she became pregnant with her daughter — one of her turning points — and is now on her second master’s degree.

“It’s not that (addiction) goes away,” Bridges said. “It’s that I use all that energy for something else.”

James has seen many go through Drug Court during his time as director, but something different struck him about painkillers.

“We noticed even when we had those one or two on pills, they were much more difficult to treat than the people who were just using cocaine or drinking or smoking weed,” he said. “They’re much harder to stop.”

This story was originally published May 31, 2017 at 3:41 PM with the headline "Carfentanil, pills at the heart of Manatee’s opioid epidemic."