Addictions expert says Manatee County has become epicenter for Florida heroin epidemic

LAKEWOOD RANCH -- Manatee County has become the epicenter of the heroin problem in Florida, the chief clinical officer of Centerstone Florida told a group of 25 people Friday afternoon.

Melissa Larkin-Skinner, who has worked with addicts for more than 20 years, spoke to the Lakewood Ranch Republican Club at the Ranch Grill about the horrors of the heroin epidemic and what could be done about it.

Centerstone, formerly Manatee Glens, is the county's primary hospital for addictions and mental health treat

ment.

"We have a huge drug problem in this county, and it isn't where you think, like in the ghettos, but in middle-class areas like Lakewood Ranch," Steve Vernon, president of the group, said as he introduced Larkin-Skinner.

Manatee County has seen about 1,000 overdoses so far in 2015, up from 700 in 2014 and 339 in 2013. Larkin-Skinner said those numbers give Manatee its epicenter status.

The supply seems to be growing.

"With the legalization of marijuana in parts of the United States, Mexican drug cartels have noticed," Larkin-Skinner said. "So a lot of marijuana farms are being replaced with opium farms to produce heroin."

While law enforcement is doing its part to try to address the supply side, Larkin-Skinner said everyone else needs to find a way to curb demand, which means educating people to prevent addictions from starting and petitioning lawmakers for increased attention to addiction treatment centers and programs.

"My mother told me: 'If someone calls you a chicken because you won't try drugs, you tell them it's better to be a chicken than a dead duck.' And that worked for me," Larkin-Skinner said, drawing laughs from the small crowd. "So it's cheesy, but I would say the message is just be honest with your children."

The other way to prevent addiction is realizing just because a doctor prescribes pain medication doesn't mean it's good to use, Larkin-Skinner said. Some people become addicted much more easily than others, which she called "immediately jumping off the deep end" based on genetics and family history.

"It's estimated that genetics make up 50 percent of a person's likelihood to become addicted," Larkin-Skinner said, adding she refuses high-strength pain medication when doctors offer it because there has been addiction in her family. "Unfortunately, not everyone who tries a drug can walk away from it. ... It's a crapshoot, to be honest. It's a genetic Russian roulette."

Pain medications are key to the heroin epidemic because, when Florida had the so-called pill mill problem, people were going to doctors for prescribed pain meds they didn't need and selling it cheaply on the streets. When pill mills were nearly wiped out in 2011, pain medication addicts turned to heroin, which remained cheap as the street cost of prescription painkillers soared.

Though Manatee County has it particularly bad, the problem isn't unique to the area or even to Florida. Larkin-Skinner said about 25 million people in the United States are either going through active addiction or recovering, which is about 8 percent of the population.

"There are two things I want you to know today," Larkin-Skinner said. "One, no one chooses to become addicted. ... Two, there's hope."

Kate Irby, Herald online/political reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7055. You can follow her on Twitter @KateIrby.

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Addictions expert says Manatee County has become epicenter for Florida heroin epidemic ."