Overdose deaths in Central Florida declined in 2023 — will the trend continue?

It’s been a devastating and life-changing few years for hundreds of thousands of people across the United States who either use illicit drugs or care about someone who does.

In 2023, for the first time since before the pandemic, the number of U.S. drug overdose deaths fell from a record high of more than 111,000 deaths in 2022 to about 107,000 in 2023.

Although a sign of progress, welcomed by many, it’s still a shocking figure — more than double the number of overdose deaths reported a decade ago.

The surge has largely been driven by illegally manufactured forms of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that can severely depress the central nervous system and slow or stop breathing. Just a couple of milligrams of the drug can be deadly for someone who’s never taken it before.

Experts say that fentanyl has increasingly been found laced into other drugs in recent years, including cocaine, meth, heroin and counterfeit pills — often unbeknownst to the user.

In Florida, the rising number of overdose deaths — a majority of which involve fentanyl — prompted state lawmakers in 2023 to decriminalize fentanyl test strips, which can help people detect fentanyl in their drugs.

Both the state and the federal government have also expanded access to naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan), a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose and save lives.

Efforts to prevent fatal overdose — and protect families from life-shattering news — have had some success in Florida. State data shows that in 2023, drug overdose deaths declined about 5 percent statewide, the most significant sign of progress since before the pandemic.

With communities around the country beginning to see funds trickle in from settlement agreements with opioid manufacturers found responsible for contributing to the opioid epidemic, many are starting to see a decline in overdose deaths.

Experts have attributed this, in part, to initiatives expanding access to naloxone, evidence-based addiction treatment for opioid use disorder, and public awareness campaigns.

According to Project Opioid, an Orlando-based nonprofit on a mission to combat the drug overdose crisis, advocates are beginning to see signs of recovery in Central Florida.

“The repetition of death and carnage we’ve seen from the opioid crisis and from fentanyl being pumped into our society has been unlike any tragedy we’ve seen in modern history,” said Project Opioid founder Andrae Bailey at a press conference in downtown Orlando Monday. “But today, I think we see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Overdose deaths in Orange County — one of the state’s most populous counties — dropped from 439 deaths in 2021 to 410 in 2023, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compiled by Project Opioid.

Data from the Medical Examiner’s Office, provided to Orlando Weekly, shows at least four of the people who died of drug-related causes in 2024 were teenagers. All four deaths involved fentanyl.

At least nine of those who died of overdose that year were identified as “transient,” meaning they were homeless. But most were not, and had a Florida address.

In Seminole County — a county with about one-third of Orange County’s population — overdose deaths dropped from 169 deaths in 2021 to 123 in 2023. In Osceola County, south of Orange, overdose deaths slightly increased, from 124 deaths in 2021 to 149 deaths in 2023.

Following the money

All three municipalities are in the process of allocating funds they received from the national opioid settlements through a process overseen by the state and federal government.

“We have historic amounts of money in every county in this state that come from Big Pharma, who were sued, who were responsible,” said Bailey. “How is that money being used?”

Bailey didn’t know the answer when Orlando Weekly asked if he could clarify how that money is being spent in Central Florida.

Nor did Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma, who was in attendance at the downtown Orlando press conference (while Orange and Osceola County sheriffs were not).

Lemma, evidently a “tough on crime” kind of guy, has helped lead efforts to address the overdose crisis in Seminole County from a law enforcement perspective and sits as delegate chair on the Statewide Council on Opioid Abatement, a body that coordinates state and local efforts to address the opioid epidemic and overdose crisis.

A website for the statewide council, however, offers a database of plans submitted by Florida municipalities to the council, outlining what they expect to do with their funds.

Some plans are more detailed than others. A plan submitted by Seminole County, for instance, shows the county plans to earmark a “TBD” amount of money for the Sheriff’s Office’s collaborative opioid response team.

A budget proposal presentation from the Sheriff’s Office, for the 2024-25 fiscal year, shows the agency requested $1.26 million in opioid settlement funds to retain staff on the Seminole Collaborative Opioid Response Efforts team, and to support a “Hope & Healing” addiction treatment facility that opened in 2021 as a collaboration between the Sheriff’s Office, the county and Advent Health.

The plan submitted to the state shows that Seminole County plans to allocate $750,000 for that treatment facility this fiscal year.

They’ve also allocated $1.45 million for unspecified “prevention” strategies and other treatment and recovery services, including wrap-around services such as housing and transportation for those with substance use disorder.

Orange County, meanwhile — which is expected to receive over $50 million over the next 15 years from the settlements — allocated about $800,000 from July 2023 to June 2024 for initiatives such as naloxone and fentanyl test strip distribution, support for incarcerated (or recently released) people with addiction — who account for one in five overdoses in the county — a mobile treatment clinic, and public awareness campaigns.

Dr. Thomas Hall, a substance use treatment provider and director of the county’s Office for a Drug-Free Community, said the goal is to spend closer to $3.5 to $4 million annually for the first five years they receive funds.

“This year, we’re going to spend probably triple that amount,” Hall told the county’s Opioid Advisory Committee in November. “Which is good news.”

The board meets quarterly, with representatives of law enforcement, paramedic services and healthcare providers present. Dr. Hall told the board they recently managed to soft-launch their highly anticipated “Better Access to Treatment” mobile clinic — which they call the BATmobile.

The county has also used settlement funds to increase capacity for a no-cost residential treatment program, run by the nonprofit STEPS, that specifically serves low-income pregnant and postpartum women with substance use disorder.

Urgent care and emergency department visits for drug overdose in Orange County have consistently declined since early 2023, according to data collected by the committee. So have most all types of fatal overdose — including overdoses involving fentanyl.

“I think naloxone has been — not gonna call it the magic bullet — but at least it’s definitely assisting in the endeavors,” said Lt. Shane Dejarnet, of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

In 2024 alone, Project Opioid — a recipient of Orange County settlement funds — said they distributed over 100,000 doses of naloxone and conducted more than 100 overdose reversal trainings across Central Florida. “We’re getting naloxone out in ways we haven’t before,” said Bailey.

“Any community not distributing naloxone, not giving medications for people struggling with drugs — any community that doesn’t have a clear path for a young person when they’re struggling and not using the billions of dollars that their counties and all of their leaders have been given, should be asked tough questions,” he added. “And the death rate tells you the truth.”

Based on preliminary data, Lemma said he projects a 42 percent drop in fatal overdoses in Seminole County in 2024 — noting that while they saw 427 overdoses last year, only 66 were fatal.

“I don’t want people to hear about the reductions and just take a victory lap and think that our work is done,” Lemma cautioned. “The hard work still lies ahead of us, but what we’ve seen here in Central Florida, and we’ve seen, quite frankly, across the state of Florida, is a shifting paradigm when it comes to substance use disorder.”

More people are talking openly about struggles with addiction, he explained. More people are seeking help, or otherwise have access to it where they previously did not.

Lemma said his office has also lobbied state legislators to toughen penalties for those who sell drugs like fentanyl to deter drug sales and trafficking.

“We now have the ability to charge a drug dealer with a second degree felony, culpable negligence, when we can prove that they dealt drugs and we revived the patient — the victim — with the use of an opioid antagonist,” said Lemma, referring to naloxone. “And that was pretty significant.”

He said they’re looking to do the same thing this year for xylazine (also known as “tranq”), a non-opioid sedative that can compound the deadly effects of opioids when mixed together.

Xylazine, a drug that has historically been used only in veterinary medicine, isn’t affected by Narcan, and can cause other serious health problems, like ulcers and skin infections.

A bill has already been filed for consideration during the 2025 Florida legislative session, beginning in early March, that would provide criminal penalties for the possession, sale, manufacturing, or trafficking of xylazine.

The bill, HB 57, is sponsored by Central Florida Republicans in the Florida House.

“What we’re doing is now we’re lobbying the legislative body to make sure that the [mandatory minimums] and the same penalties for trafficking xylazine match the penalties for trafficking fentanyl and other substances,” Lemma said.

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed

This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2025.