JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Less than two weeks ago News4JAX showed you body cam video of a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer, along with Jacksonville Fire and Rescue, saving the life of a 7-month-old that JSO says encountered fentanyl.
The first responders involved were awarded by Attorney General Ashley Moody.
“The 7-month-old did not decide to take fentanyl. It is because fentanyl is flooding our country. We have to make sure we are seizing as much as we can,” she said.
Obviously, the border is hundreds of miles and states away but that is where the Attorney General and narcotics agents say the drugs are pouring in.
News4JAX reached out to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and asked Spokesperson Mark Woodward what the chances are the drugs are coming from the border, into the Midwest and then out to Florida.
“No doubt, no doubt, on a daily basis,” said Woodward.
News4JAX met Mark Woodward during his time reporting in Oklahoma.
A common topic of discussion was the pipeline of drugs on the highways from Mexico to Texas to Oklahoma.
If the drugs are seized there, you may end up changing lanes with them in Florida.
If you look at a map from Oklahoma to Florida, you make your way southeast, until hitting either Interstate 10 or Interstate 75.
Coming from Texas, much of your trip to Florida would be on I-10.
“When a load, for example, gets shipped into the United States smuggled, maybe it starts out in El Paso, you’ve got 200 pounds of meth and portions of that will be broken up. Some will stay in Texas. Some will start heading to Chicago, New York, Florida. Once it gets there, they’ve got people waiting for it, where there’s a money and drug exchange,” Woodward said.
Moody says they try and pick them up from there.
“We are breaking records for the amount we are seizing,” she said.
Narcotics agents like the ones in Oklahoma with the Bureau of Narcotics, and law enforcement here in Florida, try and get as many as possible off the street and bring the flow on the highways to a complete stop.
“I am proud to say that we are still fighting on that front and won’t stop as long as we are losing Floridians,” Moody said.