Florida drug overdose deaths among highest in US The Floridian

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has released new data on the latest preliminary drug overdose deaths across the country from February 2023-2024. Boca Recovery Center, which has two locations in Florida (Boca Raton, Pompano Beach) and four nationwide, analyzed this data and discovered some tragic trends by state.

As expected, the three most populous states (California, Texas, and Florida, respectively) suffer the most overdoses per day. California comes in at #1 with 32.3 deaths per day, followed by Florida at 19.3 and Texas at 15.4. Despite having about eight million more residents, Texas has four fewer overdose deaths per day.

However, from February 2023 to 2024, California, Florida and Texas did not rank in the top 10 for most fatalities per capita. West Virginia (75.2), Alaska (51.3), Tennessee (50.3), Delaware (47.9) and Louisiana (47.2) rounded out the top five.

Of California, Texas and Florida, the Sunshine State has the highest per capita death rate (31.1), followed by California (30.3) and Texas (18.5).

A multitude of problems cause overdoses. Users can become addicted through the purchase of illegal substances or from the opiates that doctors prescribe to relieve pain. Overdose deaths are tragic and affect not only those who use, but can also devastate the social fabric through the aftermath of pain inflicted on the families of overdose victims.

As for prescription painkillers, that’s a problem that may require more complicated solutions. But when it comes to illegal substances like fentanyl and tranq (xylazine) coming across the border, facilitated by cartels south of the Rio Grande, what solutions are lawmakers proposing to combat this deadly problem?

In January 2023, Reps. Michael Waltz (R-FL), a retired U.S. Army Green Beret, and Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) endorsed former president donald Trump‘s hawkish plan to combat Mexican drug cartels. Reps. Waltz and Crenshaw introduced legislation that would authorize direct military action against the cartels through the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Their resolution is known as the AUMF to combat, attack, resist, target, eliminate and contain (CARTEL) Influence resolution.

In a statement, Waltz defended the efforts, saying “the situation at our southern border has become untenable for our law enforcement personnel, in large part due to the activities fueled by the heavily armed and well-funded Sinola and Jalisco cartels.”

Waltz stressed the need to “go on the offensive” and assured that this is the way forward because “these paramilitary transnational criminal organizations are not only responsible for killing an unprecedented number of Americans, but are also actively undermining our sovereignty by destabilizing our borders and waging war against U.S. law enforcement and the Mexican military.”

Rep. Crenshaw echoed Waltz’s remarks, affirming that “the cartels are at war with us — poisoning nearly 80,000 Americans with fentanyl every year, creating a crisis on our border, and turning Mexico into a failed narco-state.”

For this reason, Crenshaw argued that the “legislation will put us on a war footing against the cartels by authorizing the use of military force against them.”

“We can no longer allow heavily armed and deadly cartels to (destabilize) Mexico and import people and drugs into the United States,” he said, urging the US to “treat them like ISIS — because that is who they are.”

The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in January 2023, but has since stalled. With President Trump’s approval of the plan, it could potentially be revived if he retains the White House.