Cincinnati, Ohio: 174 heroin overdoses in six days.
Camden, New Jersey: 29 heroin overdoses have been linked to free samples of heroin, marked with a Batman symbol.
Huntington, West Virginia: One in 10 babies born at Cabell Huntington Hospital suffer withdrawal.
Heroin is making national news headlines as the epidemic continues to find its way from the inner cities to the suburbs. Following a crackdown on prescription drug abuse, the use of heroin has seen a resurgence in Florida since 2014.
A new clinic has opened in Plant City to fight the problem. Aaron and Amy Patrick opened Florida’s first A New Start Clinic, a Kentucky-based treatment center founded by Dr. Barry Hardison, at 1514 S. Alexander St. this fall.
The Patricks have worked at the clinic for four years and moved to Plant City to work and live near some of Aaron Patrick’s family members.
“It’s a good program,” Aaron Patrick said. “It helps a lot of people. We’ve had excellent luck with it in Kentucky. It’s been a great thing up there, so we were hoping we could bring a little bit of that down here too.”
The Patricks said most patients in Kentucky seek treatment for addiction to painkillers, but Florida’s need for heroin treatment is the state’s big dilemma.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s most recent information, a record-high 447 people were killed by effects from the drug in 2014. One year earlier, the drug was present in 199 deceased individuals. In Hillsborough County, heroin deaths rose from three in 2013 to 22 in 2014.
Although the FDLE has not released a full report of data from 2015, the interim report, published in April, showed between January and June 2015, 343 people were killed by the drug’s effects — an average of 58 deaths per month, over the 2014 average of 37.
SHOOTING DOWN HEROIN
A New Start Clinic uses the drug Suboxone as the foundation of its treatment program. While Suboxone affects the same area of the brain as opiates, Suboxone “bounces off” the opiate receptors, eliminating the effects of heroin, which “sticks” to the receptors.
The drug, which is designed to curb cravings and withdrawal symptoms within an hour, is sometimes believed to be a drug that gets people high because it can be bought on the street.
“There’s not a component of getting high in this drug — that’s a misconception people have,” Stoltz said. “It’s not replacing one drug with another.”
Patients at A New Start will take the drug for over a year but not more than two. Suboxone, which comes in the form of a film to be dissolved in the mouth, is administered differently depending on the patient’s last use and their dependency and tolerance.
After the first few days, Suboxone can be taken once daily. Prescribed doses taper down every few months, depending on the patient’s progress, until the patient has kicked the habit. The initial cost is $195 for a month’s worth of medication, which then drops to $175 per month until the program is completed.
In addition to medication, A New Start’s patients are required to attend behavioral therapy sessions, join a 12-step program and pass random drug screenings.
Patients are not required to stay overnight: the longest average stay for a patient is around two hours, generally on the first visit. During the first visit, vitals are taken, patients meet their doctors and take the first dose of Suboxone, which requires an hour’s stay to ensure the drug doesn’t cause a negative reaction.
“They can live a normal life,” Aaron Patrick says. “It’s just like seeing a normal doctor once a month for a refill.”
The clinic is working on building its base of clients and, in the future, the Patricks hope to educate the community about addiction and treatment through public forums.
“(Addiction) is not a character flaw,” Amy Patrick said. “It’s a disease.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.