Florida Senate Democratic leader to Gov. Rick Scott: Treat opioid crisis as a public health emergency

Florida Senate Democrats are urging Gov. Rick Scott to declare a public health emergency over the growing opioid epidemic in the state.

“No longer confined to small urban enclaves, heroin and fentanyl have become the scourge of communities throughout Florida, wreaking widespread devastation not only from the ravages of addiction, but the resurgence of deadly diseases associated with drug abuse,” Senate Democratic Leader Oscar Braynon, of Miami Gardens, wrote in a letter to Scott on Monday.

“There is no family, no race, no ethnicity, no income level this epidemic cannot touch — and no effective state bulwark in place to stop it,” Braynon added.

Citing “recent news reports” based on Florida Department of Law Enforcement data, Braynon wrote that the number of heroin deaths in Florida rose nearly 80 percent from 2014 to 2015, while the number of fentanyl deaths rose 77 percent in the same time.

He noted that a year ago it took “just nine” confirmed cases of the Zika virus in Florida before Scott signed an executive order directing then-State Surgeon General Dr. John Armstrong to declare a public health emergency in the affected counties, which included Miami-Dade.

“This emergency will not end without our intervention and resources,” Braynon wrote on behalf of the Democrats’ 15-member Senate caucus. “I strongly urge you to take this first step and launch the response our state is still lacking.”

Florida law technically vests the responsibility of declaring a public health emergency with the state health officer, not the governor. The state health officer is Dr. Celeste Philip, the current state surgeon general.

Spokespeople for both the governor’s office and the Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday afternoon

This story was originally published February 20, 2017 at 3:42 PM with the headline "Florida Senate Democratic leader to Gov. Rick Scott: Treat opioid crisis as a public health emergency."