MIDDLEBURG, Fla. – Florida is rolling out a new program to help battle opioid addiction and overdoses titled “CORE,” which stands for “Coordinated Opioid Recovery.”
Officials with the state health department said the program is meant to “expand every aspect of overdose response and treats all primary and secondary impacts of substance use disorder.”
The first phase of the program’s rollout includes operations in Clay County as well as Brevard, Escambia, Gulf, Marion, Pasco, and Volusia counties. The second phase will add Citrus, Duval, Flagler, Manatee, and Pinellas counties to the list.
The pilot program assembles agencies like the state’s Department of Children and Families, the Department of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Administration and individual county governments to comprehensively address all the issues that lead to and come from substance use disorder, not just overdose response.
“You’ll notice, we all keep speaking about this as a disease because it is a disease, and with advanced neuroimaging, you can actually see the damage that this does to the brain,” the program’s director, Kenneth Scheppke said.
The goal of CORE is to provide that network of cooperating agencies as a resource to address all aspects of substance abuse and overdoses, from housing insecurity to mental health issues, and even other diseases connected to drug use like Hepatitis-C.
“We fix this one disease that’s at a nexus of all these other problems, we can cure a lot of problems in our society,” Scheppke said.
Since 2015, fentanyl-related overdose deaths have increased by 790% in Florida, according to the state’s health department. In 2021, more than 8,000 Floridians died from an opioid overdose. So far this year, the number has surpassed 4,000.