TAMPA, Fla. — The Florida Department of Health alongside other state agencies will launch a statewide public messaging advisory system to inform the public of dangers of fentanyl, according to the Governor's Press Office.
The office said the advisory will focus on prevention and recovery resources for overdoses involving synthetic opioids.
“Too many individuals are losing their lives because of illicit drugs and substance abuse,” First Lady Casey DeSantis said.
Fentanyl in recent years has been a significant drug contributing to the nation's overdose crisis. It’s a synthetic opioid 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Oftentimes, Corporal Aaron Dahl with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said it's laced with another drug.
"More than 6,150 people died from overdoses involving fentanyl and fentanyl analogs in 2020," Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said. "While substance use disorder is a chronic disease that requires clinical oversight, the fentanyl crisis requires us to be all hands on deck across communities — and that is exactly what we are doing."
The advisory is a result of discussions held Thursday between First Lady Casey DeSantis, Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Department of Children and Families (DCF) Secretary Shevaun Harris, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Acting Commissioner Mark Glass and Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young.
Currently, DCF deploys more than 200 Narcan kits to treat overdoses and peer-support coordinators to the county as a way to combat fentanyl usage, the office said in a statement.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in May that increases the minimum mandatory sentence for trafficking in fentanyl from three years to seven years, with the penalty climbing to at least 20 years when dealing in greater amounts.
"We're going to do all we can to decrease the prevalence of fentanyl in Florida and that means if you're dealing fentanyl, you are killing people, and you're going to be put in jail," DeSantis said.
Also, with the new law, SB 544, Floridians can now go to pharmacists to receive Narcan which can be administered during emergencies.
According to the data collected by LIVE Tampa Bay, the region has some of the highest rates of opioid overdoses in the country. An estimated 1,540 people died of opioid overdoses in the Tampa Bay region in 2020 – more than four people each day on average. That's a 49.6 percent increase since 2019, according to the nonprofit.
That's higher than the state and national averages, 10 Tampa Bay recently learned in its Overdosed series.