Drugs and Substance Abuse in Florida

Drugs and Substance Abuse in Florida
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Locate your state's vital statistics and/or census data to compare the outcomes of the selected leading health indicator.
The war on drugs and substance abuse in Florida has been evolving. Lately, the opioid crisis has been the major issue that has stifled healthy people's objectives on the drugs and substance abuse front. The opioid crisis has gone countrywide and has become a yardstick to measure the progress Healthy People initiative on the drug and substance abuse goals.
While healthy people's objectives to reduce drug and substance abuse of some substances, others take their place, and the goal to ultimately achieve some leading health indicators is affected. For example, when Florida legislation stepped in to legislate against pill mills which had caused the opioid crisis in the state from 2009 to 2011, death from an overdose of oxycontin decreased. The legislative changes, law enforcement operations, increased governmental spending on substance abuse treatment, and other efforts coincided with an over 38% decrease in opioid pill deaths, from 2,023 in 2010 to 1,244 in 2012 CITATION Han20 \l 1033 (Handberg, 2020). However, while death by mostly oxycontin or other opioids with similar molecular structure was regulated and led to fewer deaths, newer drugs took their place. First, heroin and morphine deaths increased in the same period. In 2010, heroin and morphine caused 310 deaths, but by 2014, the number of those deaths increased to over 1,100 CITATION Han20 \l 1033 (Handberg, 2020). At the same time, fentanyl, a substance that is 50 times more potent than heroin, flooded the market and. For example, in 2012, the number of deaths caused by fentanyl in Florida was 114, but the number has increased to 1743 in 2017 CITATION Han20 \l 1033 (Handberg, 2020).
These statistics show that the Healthy People objectives of reducing drugs and substance abuse have remained elusive in the state. The problem is steps ahead of the system, and the issue is evolving rapidly. In 2017, the Florida legislature regulated fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and fentanyl derivatives. This is a step in the right direction but came in a little late. Other substances continue to flood the market, and opioids abuse is still rampant in the state.
Evaluate the state-level program's effectiveness in meeting the Healthy People 2020 goals based on your statistical and census data findings.
One of the major programs that the state government of Florida created in response to the opioid crisis was the dose of reality. It was meant to prevent prescription painkiller abuse in Florida. The program was created in 2019 in response to the opioid epidemic that was affecting the whole country. Florida's legislation and the programs she initiated in 2018 led to a significant reduction in opioid use. Immediately after passing the HB 21, the prescriptions dispensed to patients reduced from 5.5 patients for every 1000 enrollees to 4.6 for every 1000 enrollees CITATION Hin20 \l 1033 (Hincapie-Castillo, Goodin, Possinger, Usmani, & Vouri, 2020).
Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2762015
Despite the legislative actions that tackled Pill Mills and fentanyl...