INDIAN ROCKS BEACH, Fla. — A handful of organizations dedicated to reducing overdoses will be visiting the beaches and local businesses handing out free Narcan over the next few weeks.
It’s a proactive effort aimed at reducing the number of drug overdoses in the Tampa Bay area during this year's spring break.
Volunteers are going door-to-door, business-to-business along St. Pete and Clearwater beaches. The groups include the Pinellas County Opioid Task Force, Florida Harm Reduction Collective, and Recovery Epicenter Foundation.
Each Narcan kit contains four doses per box, and they will even demonstrate how to use it to those willing to work with them.
“Last year it was ‘feel free to come to us, we’ll give it to you.’ Now, it’s OK, we’re bringing it to you,” William Atkinson, director at the Recover Epicenter Foundation, said.
Atkinson says they understand the optics here, so they’re trying to be low key about it.
But the reality, he says, is that lots of people will be traveling here for spring break. Some will take drugs. And in Florida, that can be a deadly decision.
"This is our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, daughters and sons," Atkinson said. "Like, we all need to come together to save some lives, and we can."
“Sure, I would be on board with it, because it’s going to save a life. I mean, if it’s only one life, it’s going to save somebody down on the beach somewhere,” said Vince Lindberg who was happy to accept a kit at the bait shop he works at on Indian Rocks Beach.
Jean Marie Murphy, who owns a café agreed.
“I think if we could help save somebody’s life that would be a gift in this world,” she said.
Drug-involved overdose, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids, killed more than 100,000 people in 2021, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. More than 20 a day in Florida, the attorney general says.
The Opioid Task force said in 2021 more than 600 people suffered deadly overdoses in Pinellas County alone, the
The more people and business armed with Narcan, the faster, they hope, someone can provide what might be life-saving help.
This more proactive approach was first tried down in South Florida where they had success with it, Atkinson said.
So far, here, he says about 80% of those approached have been receptive.
Organizations involved will be making their way up and down St. Petersburg and Clearwater beaches over the next few weeks every Tuesday and Thursday between noon and 2 p.m. and they are looking for volunteers to help.
The free Narcan kits also contain information about Florida’s Good Samaritan law, which says any person who, in good faith, tries to render emergency care won’t be held liable for any civil damages as a result of trying to provide treatment.
“We have the tools, it’s free,” Atkinson said, “Now we just need to get it out there into the community and we’d like your help.”