JACKSONVILLE – The Sheriff's Offices is Jacksonville and St. Johns County each shared Monday how the opioid crisis is impacting enforcing laws and saving lives.
Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and St Johns County Undersheriff Matt Cline each told the Rotary Club of Jacksonville that the number of overdoses and crimes related to the addiction is growing fast.
Williams said his officers see an overdose every two hours in Jacksonville, and that the number of crimes involving opioids, particularly heroin, has doubled since 2013.
For that reason, law enforcement in Jacksonville and across the state is taking a different approach: looking to charge the dealers if one of their customers dies.
"We hope that the message gets out to that drug-dealing community that this is an option that we are looking (at) and aggressively pursuing," Williams said. "Maybe they don't want to be first and they will pick another profession."
While Clay County is pursuing its first homicide prosecution of an opioid dealer, it hasn't happened yet in Duval County, although there are two in custody where that could come into play.
St Johns County's Cline said they will start administering a drug voluntarily that actually take the high from opioids away.
"Everybody that comes into the program, they do so willingly because they want to get off of it -- they want to get off the drugs," Cline said. "So this is a first step for us."
Both law enforcement officers said the impact of this crisis is different than the crack epidemic in the 1980s. That affected almost exclusively poor neighborhoods in inner cities, while people of all economic levels in every neighborhood can be involved with opioids.