Opioid crisis: Port Orange chamber forum addresses 'biggest threat to our community'

PORT ORANGE ― The opioid epidemic is a national crisis that claimed the lives of more than 300 people in Volusia County last year. The crisis afflicts people from all walks of life as well as all ages and income brackets.

"Very few people are criminals," Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood told a lunchtime gathering of the Port Orange South Daytona Chamber of Commerce on Thursday. "They are our brothers, our sisters, our husbands, our wives, our grandparents, our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, our cousins. That's who is dying."

Chitwood was one of several experts who spoke about the opioid epidemic at the chamber event at Riverside Pavilion in Port Orange. The standing-room crowd of 150 people included business owners, elected officials, law enforcement officers, physicians and addiction counselors.

The panelists included Karen Chrapek, executive director of the Volusia Recovery Alliance, Volusia County Council members Matt Reinhart and Danny Robins, Lane Jennings Jr. and Dr. Stephen Viel of Halifax Health, and attorney Doug Collins of Cobb Cole Law Firm.

Battling the crisis requires a community-wide team effort

Several of the panelists noted that fighting the epidemic requires a multi-pronged approach that includes stepped-up efforts to identify and arrest drug dealers, the need for increased distribution of Narcan kits to treat overdose victims, and greater public awareness of the resources available to those needing help.

The pandemic compounded the problem

Barbara Ann Heegan, CEO of the Port Orange South Daytona Chamber, said Volusia County Medical Examiner Dr. James Fulcher told her the county "tragically lost 303 lives to overdose deaths in 2023 alone."

Volusia County only had 58 such deaths 10 years ago. In 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the county had 187 overdose deaths. That number shot up to 343 in 2020, 400 in 2021, and 335 in 2022.

The surge is no coincidence. "The disruption in mental health services, substance abuse counseling and other critical programs during the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the challenges of our workforce," said Heegan. The increase in those working remotely made it increasingly "difficult for people to use those connections, people and resources that they once had."

The median age of those Volusia County residents who died from drug overdoses last year was 50.

It's 'the biggest threat to our community'

Chitwood said he considers the opioid epidemic "the biggest threat to our community and to our country and to our children and to our co-workers without a doubt. Since 2020, almost 1,200 Volusia County residents have lost their lives from overdose when fentanyl is involved in that. Almost 8,500 have overdosed."

Reinhart, a former Volusia County corrections warden, can personally attest to who widespread the opioid epidemic has become.

April 29 will mark the one-year anniversary of his brother's death from a drug overdose.

"It hits every one of us," he said. "Everybody in this room, somewhere somehow someway has been in contact with somebody that either has an addiction or has, worse case scenario, like what I went through."

It's caused a 'paradigm shift' among law enforcement

Chitwood said he used to chalk up overdose deaths as the consequence of bad decisions.

The surge in fentanyl-related overdose deaths forced him to make "a paradigm shift," he said. "We could no longer have that attitude."

Many overdose deaths today are not from heroin, but from prescription pain medications or knockoffs of those drugs, according to Chitwood. When they are unable to get their physicians to continue writing refill orders, some resort to other ways of obtaining pain medicine, he added.

But appearances can be both deceiving and deadly.

Chitwood said his deputies have raided drug houses where dealers used pill presses to create knock-off drugs made to look like brand-name prescription drugs. Instead, they were "100% fentanyl." A local woman died this past Christmas after ingesting a single pill she thought was Percocet, he said.

The crisis is also spreading among children

Chitwood said he recently heard Volusia County School Board member Carl Persis say that the public school district was averaging "one kid a week that's taken out by EVAC (Emergency Volunteer Air Corps) and hospitalized" because of vaping overdoses.

"It's destroying our future," Chitwood said.

There is hope for those struggling from addiction

Chitwood gave a shout out to audience member Ryno Foster, a certified recovery peer specialist for the nonprofit Volusia Recovery Alliance.

Foster, who lives in Ormond Beach, will mark four years in recovery this August. The former longtime drug addict overdosed 18 times, but survived thanks to life-saving doses of Narcan. The medicine is designed to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. He now leads a Volusia Recovery Alliance peer group that helps recovering addicts like himself.

"He's here today, he's a dad and he's a productive member of our community," said Chitwood proudly of Foster.

Panelist Lane Jennings Jr. said he, too, is a former drug addict.

Today he is a licensed clinical social worker and a master certified addiction professional who supervises the adult behavioral services program at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach.

"I'm very hopeful that we can raise some awareness and begin to talk a little bit more and ultimately chip away at the stigma (of being labeled an addict)," he said. "The stigma is really what keeps people oppressed and pushed down."

Alliance formed to help those in need

Chrapek described herself as a former addict who has been in recovery 41 years. She led the formation of the Volusia Recovery Alliance in 2019 "to help people get into recovery and stay in recovery."

"I'm here to tell that recovery is possible," she said.

Those suffering from opioid addiction are encouraged to call the alliance's peer support hotline at 386-777-7337.

Narcan can save lives

Administering Narcan to someone experiencing a drug overdose can save a life that might otherwise be lost before a 911 emergency responder can get there.

Heegan started carrying a Narcan kit in her purse at the suggestion of the police chief for the upstate New York community where she was living at the time. Shortly after heeding his advice, she encountered a woman experiencing an overdose in a pharmacy restroom. That woman is alive today, thanks to that Narcan kit, she said.

Everyone attending Thursday's chamber forum received free Narcan kits from the alliance. It has distributed more than 19,000 kits since its launch.

Efforts pledged to continue the fight

Heegan on Thursday announced the launch of a new recovery-friendly workplace initiative committee in partnership with the alliance.

One of the committee's goals is encouraging local employers to provide "second chance" employment opportunities for those in recovery, including those who might have done prison time.

Heegan said Thursday's forum was an encouraging first step.

"I thought the panel discussion really drove home the business community's compassion," she said. "We really want to help our community, those that are in active recovery, get gainful employment and (to let them know) that there are businesses that are here in our community that are willing and able to hire."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Opioid crisis: Port Orange chamber tackles region's 'biggest threat'