Fentanyl Deaths Soar

I was shocked to read about this new drug Beth Kassab wrote about in her column in the Orlando Sentinel.  I don't think I had heard of this new drug Fentanyl.  Of course, I'm not always up on the latest new drugs and medications.

From the article, there is a very serious problem with Fentanyl in the Orlando area.  In 2013, there were 18 deaths.  In 2014 there were 34 deaths and in 2015, there were 70 deaths.  Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin.  It most likely affects other communities, but this post is specific to the Orlando area.

While this medication is prescribed for patients after surgery or for patients with terminal illness, it does not take too much of this drug to be deadly.  Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine.

Of course the drug dealers sell it to the addicts as heroin.  Unbeknown to the addicts, they may think they are getting heroin when in fact they may be getting Fentanyl and it could likely kill them as they think they can take the same dosage as they do with heroin.

One would think that the drug dealers would not want to kill off their buyers, but in the drug world, it is different from what I am reading.  It is like a badge of honor if the stuff they sell is so potent it kills off the buyers.  This means other buyers want their stuff more than anyone else.

We're living in a society where we turn to drugs far too much.  I will be upfront and honest in that I'm not a big believer in drugs or most surgeries.  You can call that naive if you want, but there are other ways to heal the body.  I've seen people on pain pills get so addicted that they can no longer feel and stay connected to their body.

There is an escalation of pain killers in our country and I don't think it is a good thing.  What is next?  Surgery to remove the nerves?  I believe in 500 or a 1000 years, we're going to look back and what we do now and wonder why we were so stupid in how we treated the human body.

Yes, I understand that when you're in pain, you want it to stop.  However, taking one escalating drug to kill the pain after another, isn't really solving the issue.  There are many other things you can do which truly heal the body, not just place a band-aid over a gushing wound.

Its sad to see the problems that this permeates out into our entire society.  We cause real issues for our communities and it plays havoc with the dollars we end up spending with very little to show for it.  It really is up to each one of us to wake up and be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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