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Speaker 1: It's the big take from Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I'm West Gusova today. How fentanyl caused the opioid crisis

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Speaker 1: to come roaring back. Just before the COVID pandemic hit,

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Speaker 1: there was some cautiously optimistic news about America's decades old

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Speaker 1: opioid epidemic. After many years of rising deaths from overdoses,

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Speaker 1: the numbers were starting to tick downward in some hard

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Speaker 1: hit states, and it appeared like prevention and treatment methods

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Speaker 1: were finally starting to work. But that all changed in

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Speaker 1: when the powerful opioid fentanyl began flooding the streets right

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Speaker 1: as the world shut down. Fentinyl overdoses are now a

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Speaker 1: major health crisis in many places across the country, and

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Speaker 1: public health officials are struggling to keep up well. If

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Speaker 1: you look out the definition of an opoi, the first

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Speaker 1: thing it says is that it creates a feeling of euphoria.

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Speaker 1: After a while, there's no longer that sense of euphoria.

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Speaker 1: It's really just I want to feel like I can

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Speaker 1: function today. That's Helena Gerard. She's a health official in

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Speaker 1: Volucia County, Florida, which is one of the places where

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Speaker 1: fentyl overdoses are a terrible problem. We'll hear more from

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Speaker 1: her in a bit, but first to explain what's happening

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Speaker 1: and what's being done about it. I'm joined by Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: reporters am A Court, Leonardo Nicoletti, and Linley Lynn, who

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Speaker 1: have worked on a deeply reported story about the fentinyl crisis. Emma,

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Speaker 1: Linley Leonardo, thanks so much for being here. Thank you

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Speaker 1: glad to be here, Thanks for having us. Let me

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Speaker 1: just start with the most basic question, what is fentanyl.

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Speaker 1: Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, and that means it is

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Speaker 1: made in a lab. It's not a natural opioid. And

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Speaker 1: when we're talking about fentanyl in this context, we're really

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Speaker 1: talking about the rise of illegal fentanyl. Largely that's what's

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Speaker 1: killing people. But fentanyl was originally sort of developed as

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Speaker 1: a medication to manage pain, and there is a prescription

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Speaker 1: version as well, but in this context, again really talking

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Speaker 1: more about the illegal drug market, so that originally this

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Speaker 1: was a manufactured pharmaceutical, but then it became illicitly manufactured. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and lately especially it's really kind of um. The

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Speaker 1: initial chemicals to make fentanyl are coming from China, they're

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Speaker 1: going to Mexico and manufacturing fentanyl and it's getting smuggled

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Speaker 1: in through the southern border. And you know, part of

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Speaker 1: the reason fentanyl has really taken off is because fentanyl

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Speaker 1: is extremely cheap to manufacture and it's extremely powerful, so

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Speaker 1: it produces a high much more easily than with other

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Speaker 1: kinds of drugs. So you've gathered in this story an

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Speaker 1: enormous amount of data tracking the rise in the use

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Speaker 1: of ventinyl and then along with it the explosive rise

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Speaker 1: in tragic deaths. Could you give us a sense of

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Speaker 1: just how large a problem this is nationwide in the US?

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Speaker 1: Sure thing? Um I spent a lot of time analyzing

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Speaker 1: um CDC data, that's the data from Centers for Disease

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Speaker 1: Control and Prevention, and just to share one set of numbers,

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Speaker 1: last year, over eighty thou Americans died from opioid overdose,

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Speaker 1: and fentanel was founding octossities of at least seventy thousand

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Speaker 1: of these deaths. So this include those people who knowingly

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Speaker 1: or unknowingly took fentanyl, and sometimes there might be um

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Speaker 1: drug cocktails that they just took they didn't know fentanel

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Speaker 1: was part of it like cartail being they might have

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Speaker 1: taken marijuanan and had ventanol in it or heroin another drug, exactly,

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Speaker 1: multiple substances mixed up. And this year's provisional data so

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Speaker 1: far show that almost a nine of Americans who have

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Speaker 1: died of opio it overdose died of fentanyl. That's very

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Speaker 1: gruesome numbers. And as we dove further into our reporting,

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Speaker 1: I was talking to myself, I just think it is

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Speaker 1: an opioid and this is part of the everlasting opiod crisis.

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Speaker 1: But this exact chapter we're at right now is a

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Speaker 1: real fentanyl crisis. To give you some size and scope.

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Speaker 1: Um since March, the beginning of the pandemic, more than

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Speaker 1: one d and sixty five thousand Americans have died from

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Speaker 1: opioid overdoses. What was it about the pandemic that made

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Speaker 1: people suddenly turned back to opioids and in particular fentanyl.

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Speaker 1: That's a great question, and it's something we really wanted

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Speaker 1: to explore in this story. In particular, I think when

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Speaker 1: you think of the opioid crisis, people often think of

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Speaker 1: prescription drugs, right, they think of produced pharma. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a long history the opid crisis has gone on

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Speaker 1: since the you know, the mid to late nineties and

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Speaker 1: the United States, but in this case, fentanyl was already

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Speaker 1: sort of starting to take off in the US prior

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Speaker 1: to COVID. But what we really saw it was in

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Speaker 1: the last three years the deaths from fentanyl just kind

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Speaker 1: of exploded, and we saw like enormous fatalities from fentanyl.

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Speaker 1: And when we tried to sort of explain why that was,

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Speaker 1: the answer we kept kind of coming back to was

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Speaker 1: sort of mostly the ubiquity of fentanyl was a big,

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Speaker 1: big factor. So it's not that people were necessarily seeking

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Speaker 1: it out. It was permeating other illegal drug supplies. So

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Speaker 1: people who were you know, using drugs like heroin, for instance,

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Speaker 1: or meth or even something like cocaine or marijuana, which

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Speaker 1: people don't typically think of as these really you know,

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Speaker 1: some of these drugs don't sound like marijuana particularly dangerous,

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Speaker 1: but they were getting sort of adulterated with fentanyl. Fentinel

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Speaker 1: was getting kind of mixed into that drug supply. And

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Speaker 1: when were they mixing fentinel into those other drugs. It's

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Speaker 1: a little hard to say, you know, one of the

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Speaker 1: big explanations is that fentanyl is um so cheap and

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Speaker 1: so you equitous that it was a way of sort

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Speaker 1: of spreading out drug supply. In some cases it might

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Speaker 1: have also been you know, an accident. All the stuff

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Speaker 1: being made in the same kind of space. Ventanyl so

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Speaker 1: poisonous that small mistakes could really be quite devastating. But

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Speaker 1: in addition to sort of the illegal drug supply getting

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Speaker 1: sort of contaminated with fentanyl, another part of that story

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Speaker 1: that's really important is counterfeit pills. So people buying black

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Speaker 1: market out of all or xanax or other kinds of drugs,

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Speaker 1: and those drugs might not actually be out of all

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Speaker 1: or xanax, they might be pills with fentanyl inside. Then

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Speaker 1: those might also be causing deadly overdoses. And this seems

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Speaker 1: to be a pretty big trend. Now, these these two

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Speaker 1: sort of factors in the sort of rise of fentanyl. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: to add on that, a lot of the deaths they

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Speaker 1: are actually due to accidental overdose when it comes to ventanyl.

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Speaker 1: And from the CDC data, we actually saw like a

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Speaker 1: growing number of deaths um when officials were doing autopsies

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Speaker 1: that were ultiple narcotics were found in the same body,

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Speaker 1: so many died without knowing from what substance they died

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Speaker 1: from even and so this cocktail effect has definitely been

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Speaker 1: a new trend that we are observing. Leonardo Linley just

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Speaker 1: mentioned the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

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Speaker 1: You're we're heavily involved in gathering and then analyzing the

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Speaker 1: data that you used to track the rise of fentanyl

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Speaker 1: in this story. What did you find in that data.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that you know, we found in

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Speaker 1: the data, and that we think we showed really clearly

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Speaker 1: in one of the graphics is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: things have been changing in the past few years. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things that has been changing is that

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Speaker 1: who fentanel has been killing has changed a lot. And

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Speaker 1: you know, you can see that while the opioid death

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Speaker 1: rate was highest for white Americans for more than fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: so until six white Americans were dying at the highest

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Speaker 1: death rate, but now it is highest among Americans. Um,

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Speaker 1: you can see that, you know, the opiod death rate

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Speaker 1: for Black Americans has more than doubled since and most

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Speaker 1: of this increase has happened during the pandemic. Um Obviously,

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Speaker 1: fentanyl has had a really big role in this increase,

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Speaker 1: and do we know from the data why there was

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Speaker 1: that switch from more white people dying from overdoses to

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Speaker 1: more black people dying. The CDC has actually really tried

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Speaker 1: to highlight this trend over the pandemic, and one of

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Speaker 1: the potential explanations they've given is that access to medical

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Speaker 1: care for opioid use disorder, which is the disease of

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Speaker 1: opioid addiction, may be sort of quite unequal, and so

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Speaker 1: people of color, including Black Americans also there's been a

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Speaker 1: big increase in the death rate among Native Americans in

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Speaker 1: the US, may not have the same kind of access

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Speaker 1: to treatment um as white Americans. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that really struck me in the story, uh, and you

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Speaker 1: alluded to this before, is just how deadly fentyl is

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Speaker 1: and the way you described it was just a few

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Speaker 1: grains of salt worth is enough to overdose, and that

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Speaker 1: so many of the doses of drugs that people buy

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Speaker 1: in the street contained way more than that. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: this is something that really struck us as well when

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Speaker 1: we were reporting this story, is that just two milligrams

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Speaker 1: of fentanyl equal to a few grains of salt is

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Speaker 1: enough to potentially cause a deadly overdose. UM. And you

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Speaker 1: can envision a few grains of salt. That is a

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Speaker 1: very small amount um And part of the reason for

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Speaker 1: that is that fentanyl is up to a hundred times

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Speaker 1: more powerful than morphine, you know, a prescription opioid, and

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Speaker 1: fifty times more powerful than heroin. And so what we

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Speaker 1: actually heard out of the county that we focused on

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Speaker 1: in the story, which is Lucia County. It's in Florida,

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Speaker 1: is that some people were overdosing and they had so

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Speaker 1: much fentinel in their bodies that it was enough to

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Speaker 1: kill thirty or four the people. That's what the Medical

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Speaker 1: Examiner's office told the county council. My conversation with Emma

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Speaker 1: Leo and Linley continues after the break. So, now that

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Speaker 1: we have a pretty good idea of just how powerful

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Speaker 1: and deadly fentanyl is, I want to talk about the

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Speaker 1: focus of your story, which is in Valusia County, Florida,

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Speaker 1: which has seen a huge increase in fentanyl deaths, and

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Speaker 1: what's happening there and what they're trying to do about that. Linley,

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Speaker 1: can you describe what's happened in Valusia County. So, when

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Speaker 1: we were using a database from the CDC that tracks

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Speaker 1: death causes in the US. We screened opiate death data

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Speaker 1: of every single county in America and try to see

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Speaker 1: which ones fitting to this exact pattern. And there were

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Speaker 1: scores of counties all of the US that have gone

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Speaker 1: through similar tragedies, and we looked into fifty counties and

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Speaker 1: called fifteen of them. After all that work, we picked

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Speaker 1: Volucia in Florida. Then we looked at Vlucia Stata more closely,

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Speaker 1: and we saw fentanel induced overdose deaths tripled in from

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Speaker 1: the year before. So it was very shocking to us.

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Speaker 1: And it just had a lot to do with the

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Speaker 1: COVID pandemic and add isolations and everything. And so in Lucia,

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Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy two lives were lost that year

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Speaker 1: due to fentanel and more surprisingly, that's over nine of

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Speaker 1: all of the total opiate overdose deaths in that county

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Speaker 1: that year. What was it about COVID in particular that

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Speaker 1: would make people turn to drugs? I mean, boredom, I suppose,

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Speaker 1: but that's a pretty extreme solution to boredom. The way

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Speaker 1: that we have been thinking about and learning about this

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Speaker 1: is really through the lens of losing support and routine

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Speaker 1: and kind of structure of life, right, so all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden everything has completely changed. And there's also I

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Speaker 1: mean it's hard to remember now with so many COVID

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Speaker 1: protocols kind of out the window, but there was a

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Speaker 1: time people were extremely scared of this new virus. And

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Speaker 1: so you put all that together, the fear, the boredom,

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Speaker 1: the loss of support, social isolation, social distancing was one

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Speaker 1: of the big tactics we used initially to keep this

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Speaker 1: virus at bay. And you have kind of a recipe

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Speaker 1: for people using substances, um. And there was actually back

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Speaker 1: at that point in time, there was some thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, all this disruption will extend the drug trade too,

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Speaker 1: but that doesn't seem to have happened. In fact, we've

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Speaker 1: seen as a result of a lot of these disruptions,

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Speaker 1: we've seen people getting cut off from many vital sources

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Speaker 1: of support for addiction. For instance, in Vlusia County, we

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Speaker 1: know some local support groups and like narcotics anonymous style

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Speaker 1: groups actually stopped meeting for a period of time. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, even when they began meeting again, they might

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Speaker 1: have only done so virtually, which you know, I think

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Speaker 1: we can all recognize that there is a place for

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Speaker 1: zoom meetings in life, but we were also all getting

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Speaker 1: very tired of zoom meetings. And then in person treatment

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Speaker 1: changed a lot to the clinic that we talked about

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Speaker 1: a lot in this story, um sm A healthcare and

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Speaker 1: Volucia County was meeting with patients virtually, and one of

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Speaker 1: the providers said to me, you know, virtually, you don't

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Speaker 1: really read people as well. We don't have them in

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Speaker 1: we can't test their urine for drugs, so we don't

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Speaker 1: really know if they're using drugs again, and we can

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Speaker 1: ask them questions, but we don't totally know, you know,

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Speaker 1: we can't read them, you know, are they telling us

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Speaker 1: the truth or not? So it did really change the

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Speaker 1: dynamic um And even now with things sort of resuming,

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Speaker 1: it's been difficult, I think, to get some of those

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Speaker 1: rhythms back. Leonard, When you were looking at all this

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Speaker 1: data and trying to figure out a way to visualize it,

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Speaker 1: what leaped out at you the most from these floor

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Speaker 1: the numbers. For me, what leaped out the most was

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Speaker 1: really the spike that you see during the pandemic, and

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Speaker 1: it's it's just so clear. You can look at the

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Speaker 1: graphic and you see that if you just put a

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Speaker 1: ruler on, that's exactly when the spike started. Like it's

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Speaker 1: almost vertical that line. It's really crazy to look at

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Speaker 1: exactly like M said, it follows the vertical line all

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Speaker 1: the way up to you know, the highest point of

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Speaker 1: the chart. But I think what really struck me when

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Speaker 1: I was looking at the numbers was just on the

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Speaker 1: national data the chart was actually too tall to fit

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Speaker 1: in this on the screen. So there isn't actually a

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Speaker 1: mobile device or a computer that you can use to

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Speaker 1: actually see the entire chart at once. You have to

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Speaker 1: scroll basically through, and as you scroll you see that

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Speaker 1: like you still haven't reached the peak of deaths in M.

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Speaker 1: So we've outlined this enormous problem, how intractable it is.

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Speaker 1: What works? What do we know actually works to bring

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Speaker 1: down addiction rates and overdoses. Yeah, so we basically know

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Speaker 1: that one of the most important things you can do

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Speaker 1: when someone has what's known as opioid use disorder, it's

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Speaker 1: you know, most people call opiate addiction, is to open

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Speaker 1: up access to medication assisted treatment. That basically means treating

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Speaker 1: folks with essentially opioids that have been specifically approved by

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Speaker 1: the US Food and Drug Administration the FDA to treat,

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Speaker 1: you know, opioid use disorder, and so it's been very

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Speaker 1: well established this is the gold standard of treating opioid addiction.

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Speaker 1: And these medications essentially help people sort of reduce some

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Speaker 1: of the euphoria highs associated with use of these drugs,

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Speaker 1: but they also help reduce the risk of relapsing. And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of key. It's a controlled environment. These folks

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Speaker 1: are being kind of adminis, you know, admit stared and

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Speaker 1: looked after biomedical professionals, and this is supposed to help

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Speaker 1: prevent them from using exactly the kinds of street drugs

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Speaker 1: we're talking about and dying of an overdose. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of other things though, that can also be

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Speaker 1: done to address this crisis and are being done, including

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Speaker 1: making the lock zone, which is the opioid overdose reversal

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Speaker 1: medication UM, much more widely available. And that's Narcan. Is

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Speaker 1: that what we're talking about. Yeah, the brand name is

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Speaker 1: is Narcan. The Lockson is the generic name, and there's

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Speaker 1: been a big push to get this stuff, you know,

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Speaker 1: available over the counter, for instance, so you don't need

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Speaker 1: a prescription anymore. To get it UM, get in the

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Speaker 1: pockets of people, get out into places like nightclubs where

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Speaker 1: people might be, you know, using drugs and be at

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Speaker 1: risk of overdosing. And the idea is that is that

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Speaker 1: the person who's overdosing does it, but somebody who sees

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Speaker 1: someone is overdosing, they have this on them and they

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Speaker 1: can help that person so the person doesn't die right.

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Speaker 1: And actually, one of the most powerful things I heard

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Speaker 1: while reporting this story was COVID was a disease where isolation.

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Speaker 1: Social isolation was the way you prevented it from spreading.

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Speaker 1: And you're using drugs alone, there's nobody there to revive

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Speaker 1: you with the loxon with nark, can you know. And

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Speaker 1: I thought that was really I mean, that kind of

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Speaker 1: hit me with a punch in the gut. So one

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Speaker 1: thing that a place like Florida is actually starting to

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Speaker 1: do as of this year is they're trying to do

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Speaker 1: a better job connecting people who are at risk of

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Speaker 1: overdose or who are you know, have overdosed UM with

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Speaker 1: this medication assisted treatment. But in Florida and other places

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Speaker 1: around the country, you know, many conservative states are not

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Speaker 1: fully embracing all of the tools of what we call

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Speaker 1: harm reduction, and harm reduction is basically acknowledging that you

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Speaker 1: can't prevent people from using drugs and all instances, but

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Speaker 1: when they do use drugs, you can try to mitigate

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Speaker 1: the harm and make it, you know, safer to use drugs. Literley,

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Speaker 1: at the beginning of the interview, you gave us some

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Speaker 1: pretty jaunting numbers for a number of people who have

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Speaker 1: died from hope we had used and in partain killer

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Speaker 1: fentanel overdoses. Where are we in the numbers now when

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Speaker 1: it comes to trends on the national skill, we are

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Speaker 1: actually seeing, um from the total number accounts, we are

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Speaker 1: seeing fewer over those deaths so far this year. But

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Speaker 1: um caveat that is we are all just having provisional

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Speaker 1: data for now. They are going to be updated as

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Speaker 1: time goes by. We are gradually walking out of that pandemic,

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Speaker 1: and I'm hopeful that without that essay major contributing factor,

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Speaker 1: we should be able to see fewer drug overdose deaths.

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Speaker 1: And also there is a growing awareness of what kind

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Speaker 1: of role fentonel is playing in this overall opioid crisis nowadays,

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Speaker 1: so I'm hoping for the best. I would also say

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Speaker 1: you know, in this day and age, with fentanel creeping

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Speaker 1: into so many other illegal drugs, drugs that people don't

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Speaker 1: think of as sort of dangerous. Know, these are drugs

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Speaker 1: that are now becoming extremely dangerous and using them can

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Speaker 1: kill you. It's a very real danger now, it's not

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Speaker 1: a hypothetical situation. Emma Linley Leo, thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: joining me today. Thank you, Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: having us, Thanks for having us West. When we come

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Speaker 1: back a close up view of the fentinyl crisis in

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Speaker 1: Florida for a closer look at fentinyl's toll on people

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Speaker 1: and communities, I'm joined by Helena Girard, who you heard

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Speaker 1: at the beginning of the episode. She's the overdose Prevention

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Speaker 1: coordinator for the Florida Department of Health Involutiona County. Helena,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks so

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Speaker 1: much for having me. Can you first just describe what

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Speaker 1: does the overdose Prevention program coordinator for Valuja County do?

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Speaker 1: What is your job? So I get to work with

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Speaker 1: community partners, so this would include hospital systems, um the

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Speaker 1: sheriff office, the medical examiner. Most importantly, I get to

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Speaker 1: work with people who have been directly impacted by substance use,

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Speaker 1: whether it's themselves personally, or a family member or a friend,

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Speaker 1: and we all work together. We look at the data

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Speaker 1: that's provided by some of those partners and we find

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Speaker 1: out who is the most impacted. You know where these

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Speaker 1: overdoses are taking place, and we try really hard to

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Speaker 1: get the messaging out into those areas so that people

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Speaker 1: are aware that what a crisis we're experiencing. We recently

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Speaker 1: now started passing out in our can um at the

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Speaker 1: Department of Health in Militia County, which is huge. Last

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Speaker 1: week we had one of our active participants in our

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Speaker 1: work overdosed and UM her family requested that our can

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Speaker 1: be distributed at her funeral. So how did you come

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Speaker 1: to this line of work? I think I started this

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Speaker 1: work just volunteering, being involved in my own recovery, and

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen was ordered a fellowship with

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Speaker 1: the Pritzkur Children's Initiative, and I focused on substance exposed newborns.

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Speaker 1: I got some really great experience working in that maternal

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Speaker 1: and child health world, but also with substance use. So

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Speaker 1: that fellowship ended in and a position was open at

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Speaker 1: the Department of Health in Blutia County. And I think

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Speaker 1: it was created for me. I mean it just it

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Speaker 1: feels like it's amazing to come to work every day

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Speaker 1: and get to do things that I'm very passionate about.

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Speaker 1: For people who use it, how does fentinel feel that

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Speaker 1: makes it such a powerful drug? Well, if you look

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Speaker 1: at the definition of an opioid, the first thing it

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Speaker 1: says is that it creates a feeling of euphoria. And

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Speaker 1: that's with a lighter dose. So when somebody uses fentanyl

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Speaker 1: in in my this is my own personal experience, um

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Speaker 1: that it's a feeling of euphoria, and um it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's scary. It's scary because it's for somebody that experiences

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Speaker 1: anxiety or depression. It could be that moment that you

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Speaker 1: feel normal, like, oh this is what other people feel like,

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to do it again. And then the

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Speaker 1: intention is never to do it forever. But nobody wakes

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Speaker 1: up every day hoping to fail. And it's progressive and

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Speaker 1: deadly and after a while there's no longer that sense

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Speaker 1: of euphoria. It's really just I want to feel like

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Speaker 1: I can function today. And how were you able to

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Speaker 1: get off of it. I was um, I was pregnant,

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Speaker 1: and I was able to detox in a hospital under

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Speaker 1: a physician's supervision nurses around the clock. So it took

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Speaker 1: about six days of intensity talking in the hospital, and

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Speaker 1: then from there I went to an intensive impatient facility

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Speaker 1: where I could stay until my daughter was born, and

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Speaker 1: then we stayed until she was almost a year old.

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Speaker 1: So I stayed for a very long time. And how

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Speaker 1: did your own experience, how does that sort of inform

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Speaker 1: the work you're doing now? I think I'm able to

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Speaker 1: take my personal experience and remember the feeling, so that

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Speaker 1: I'm not doing the work through a lens of judgment.

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Speaker 1: I'm doing it through a lens of compassion and having

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Speaker 1: been there myself and understanding the pain and that it's

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Speaker 1: not moral failing. It's not because people are bad, that

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Speaker 1: they are struggling with substance use, and so it really

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Speaker 1: creates an opportunity for me to have a really open

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Speaker 1: mind with the work. Everybody's recovery is different, everybody's story

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Speaker 1: is different, and how can we support everybody's recovery in

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Speaker 1: a different way? Can you describe what the situation is

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Speaker 1: right now in Valusia County it's not good. UM. We

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Speaker 1: are second in the state capita for overdoses, so there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of people dying a lot of um

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Speaker 1: non fatal overdoses as well. And it's um whether they're

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Speaker 1: using fentanyl because they know it UM, but we also

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Speaker 1: have those who are using something else. They might think

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Speaker 1: they're taking a zanex and it's pressed with fentanol, or

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Speaker 1: they buy some weed and the dealer just had touched

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Speaker 1: fentanyl and then it gets into the marijuana and they're

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Speaker 1: exposed that way. And you know, it takes the size

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Speaker 1: of two grains of salt to be fatal. So it's

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Speaker 1: um pretty serious when you know a couple of crumbs

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Speaker 1: get into anything else. You talked about how important our

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Speaker 1: can is. Can you describe why it's so important? Simply

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Speaker 1: it saves lives. But when narcan is administered, and it

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Speaker 1: looks like a nasal spray, the one that is most

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Speaker 1: generally in the public. But what they do it goes

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Speaker 1: in and it goes to the receptors, the opioid receptors

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Speaker 1: in the brain and it pushes opioids out, so it

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Speaker 1: pulls the person out of an overdose. It sometimes takes

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Speaker 1: a couple of tries, especially with the ventanyl. Now I

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Speaker 1: have friends that I personally know that have taken six

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Speaker 1: doses to revive them. And another thing that I always

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Speaker 1: like to remind people if they don't go with UM

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Speaker 1: the first responders once they arrive, making sure to keep

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Speaker 1: an eye on them because the narcan only stays in

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Speaker 1: the receptors for a certain amount of time. So if

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Speaker 1: there's enough opioids in their system, then they could reattach

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Speaker 1: and they can overdose again without even using any more drugs.

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Speaker 1: And is narcan something that anyone can carry and if

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Speaker 1: they see a person is overdose, they can administer it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there's a good Samaritan Act that that covers someone. So

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Speaker 1: what we're taught is if anyone is unresponsive, assume that

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Speaker 1: it's an overdose. If it is not an overdose, it

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Speaker 1: won't hurt them. But it's just something that you want

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00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: to tell the paramedics when they arrive. Hey, I didn't

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00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: mr narcan just in case, but anybody can do it.

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00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:03,439
Speaker 1: We also often hear about needle exchanges. Is that something

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00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: that you do and is that in an effective practice?

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00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 1: We don't currently do the needle exchanges in Felicia County

434
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: but they have been found to be very very effective,

435
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:18,959
Speaker 1: you know, lowering the risk of endocarditis, appetitis, C, HIV,

436
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: all of those you know, all those things can ultimately

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00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: lead to death. You know, you might not even have

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00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: to have experience and an overdose. So having access to

439
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,679
Speaker 1: clean syringers is really really important. Are there things that

440
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: you find, uh are part of the treatment policies that

441
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: just aren't working very well that that need to be changed. Well,

442
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: we you know, we talked about syringe syringe exchange. That's

443
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: a huge one. Final test trips. The test trips are

444
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: not legal in the state of Florida. They're considered paraphernalia.

445
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: There are groups that that they go to dance parties

446
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: or different venues like that concerts and they will provide

447
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: this strips there. So if you are using something and

448
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: you want to test it to make sure it doesn't

449
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: have Fenton All in it, they can do it without

450
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: you getting in trouble. I think that should be everywhere.

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00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: I think that you know that that's something that should

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00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: be easily accessible, just like narcan is. Now, are you

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00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: starting to see results from your work? Can you see

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00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 1: that you're making a dent in overdose numbers. I would

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00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: like to think. I hope that. UM. I know that

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00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 1: our community partners from since the beginning of the year

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00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: have been tracking the amount of narcan that they're distributing,

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00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 1: and they also track how many reversals are reported. So

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00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: a reversal would be if someone had to use their

460
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: narcan and they revived someone and they come back and say,

461
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: I need some more because I had to use it.

462
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: So they're reporting that they were able to save a

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00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 1: life with that narcan. But at the beginning, there wasn't

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00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: that trust, so no one was reporting. And now people

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00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: are reporting, and we have had over with just one

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00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: of our community partners, over one reversals reported. And have

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00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: you found the public is more receptive now to taking

468
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: and carrying our ken in the event that they come

469
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: across someone who's overdosed. I think we have work to do,

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00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: but UM, I think so. I think, UM, if you're

471
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: able to have that real conversation, people are becoming more

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00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: open to it. Helena Gerard, thanks so much for taking

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00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: the time to talk to me today. Thank you. You

474
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: can read the Fentel story by Ema Court, Leonardo Nicoletti,

475
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 1: Linley Lynn, and Madeline Campbell at Bloomberg dot com. Thanks

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00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: for listening to us here at the Big Tag. It's

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00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: the daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For

478
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: more shows from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart

479
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: Radio app podcast or wherever you listen. Read Today's story

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00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,400
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481
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Speaker 1: slash Big Tag, and we'd love to hear from you.

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00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: Email us with questions or comments to Big Take at

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00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take

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00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: is Vicky Burgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Our

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00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: producer is Rebecca Shasson. Our associate producer is Sam Gobauer.

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00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: Raphael M. Seeley is our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidrin.

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00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big

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