Jacksonville prepares to mobilize against opioid overdose crisis

Jacksonville, like the rest of the country, is wrestling with a problem of increased opioid overdoses.

In January, Councilman Bill Gulliford started sounding the alarm.

Gulliford noted that “it is a scary number especially when you compare it to homicides which get all the media attention. And, how many of the homicides are drug related? My executive assistant is trying to secure that information from the sheriff’s office. If we combine the two it gets even scarier.”

“We should be shouting these numbers from the rooftops folks. This is an epidemic and yet the attention is limited. I think bringing attention to this should be the number one priority of the Public Safety Committee in 2017. Attention is just the first step. Maybe bringing attention to the numbers alone will help scare some young people to avoid drugs,” Gulliford noted.

As Jacksonville enters its budget season, time is of the essence to launch a meaningful response to a crisis that takes three times as many lives as homicides do in the city.

To that end, Councilman Gulliford has scheduled a “community conversation” on the opioid overdose crisis, to be held March 9 at 5:30 p.m. in Council Chambers.

One reason for the meeting — to educate people on the impact of the crisis, bringing together people from different parts of city government and outside of it to formulate a strategy of response, from police, fire and rescue, and treatment specialists.

The individual stories are horrifying.

Gulliford told of a fire lieutenant who had responded to a 911 call — the caller’s girlfriend had injected herself and overdoses almost immediately.

The cocktail of choice: a blend of heroin and carfentanil.

Narcan has been a saving grace for fire and rescue departments; however, says Gulliford, there are opioids entering the market than are immune to it.

And then there are users who, once normalized by Narcan, immediately go back for another fix — such as a young lady treated for overdoses 4 times in one day.

There are things being tried elsewhere to help — Gulliford thinks that peer recovery specialists, former addicts who engage the recovering after they are discharged from treatment facilities, can help.

However, the councilman understands the difficulty of any easy fix to the problem, noting that local mental health suffers from a state funding shortfall, and all too often, people are discharged from treatment too early.

Gulliford intends to invite Mayor Lenny Curry to the event, and welcomes press coverage; his contention is that given the depth of the opioid crisis, there hasn’t been enough attention paid.