TAMPA, Fla. — This 12 months marks 5 years since Laura Sehres misplaced her son, Scott.
“I miss — I miss the sound of his voice. I miss those big bear hugs he would give me,” Sehres mentioned via tears. “I miss everything.”
Scott, simply 24 years outdated on the time of his demise, suffered a drug overdose in Dec. 2018. According to Sehres, Scott’s shift at paintings used to be lower, triggering an emotional spiral.
“He went looking for Percocet, but unable to find it, he dialed the number to a drug house in South Tampa that he knew,” Sehres mentioned.
Scott died there after taking heroin. The one that gave it to him waited 3 and a part hours after he died to name 911, Sehres mentioned.
“It is heartbreaking in a way that is unimaginable,” she mentioned. “I remember I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know if I would even make it through losing my son.”
According to Sehres, Scott had struggled with medicine for years and used them to self-medicate psychological well being afflictions. However, he had gained remedy and had no explanation why to imagine he would ever overdose.
“He would say how this would not happen to him, right? He was too smart for this to happen to him, and an overdose was only something that happened to other people,” Sehres mentioned. “This can and does happen to everyone — every walk of life, every age, every gender. When they say drugs and overdose deaths don’t discriminate, they’re right.”
To Jennifer Webb, Sehres’ ache is sadly acquainted.
Webb is the chief director of Live Tampa Bay, a coalition of native leaders devoted to decreasing opioid deaths around the Bay space.
“The Tampa Bay area, again this year, is leading the other regions in the state in the rate of overdoses,” Webb mentioned. “And this is just heartbreaking, and so we need all of the tools in our toolbox in order to fight this.”
Wednesday, Webb realized a brand new device shall be to be had someday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed Narcan, within the shape of a naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray, for over-the-counter (OTC), nonprescription use.
The lifesaving drug briefly reverses the consequences of an overdose.
Over the years, Narcan has change into extra readily to be had. First responders around the nation now lift it and have used it effectively to save lots of lives. In addition, more than a few nonprofits and different organizations be offering it to these in peril of drug overdoses. Additionally, states around the nation, including Florida, have “standing orders,” which assist disperse the lifesaving drug to those that want it.
However, Webb says Narcan nonetheless isn’t “everyday accessible,” and he or she thinks the transfer to make it over-the-counter will “absolutely” save lives.
“I think that this will increase accessibility. It’ll also, I think, drop the price to make it more affordable,” she mentioned. “What we want to do is make sure that people stay alive until they can get on that road to recovery, and so that’s what this is about.”
Sehres believes Narcan may have saved her son’s lifestyles had the drug been extra to be had on the time of his demise.
However, she has blended feelings about making it over-the-counter.
“This is not a silver bullet,” she warned. “It’s a win, but it’s not the silver bullet.”
Along with the over-the-counter availability, she desires to peer extra schooling in regards to the good Samaritan laws that safeguard the ones in search of scientific help or Narcan for other people experiencing overdoses.
She would additionally like extra schooling about the signs of an overdose.
Additionally, she desires communities to deal with why persons are the usage of medicine within the first position.
For her son, she thinks psychological well being problems and insecurities — fueled through social media — brought about misery and driven him to medicine.
“My son, actually — I found on his phone — he had an app on his phone that was a like counter, and he could put in this app, I guess, a post that he was going to do, and it would project for him how many likes he would get,” she mentioned. “We’re not making those critical connections that we as humans need to be, you know, more fulfilled, and we’re turning to substances to fill that void.”
Until then, she feels overdoses will proceed to occur in Tampa Bay and around the nation.
According to the FDA, over 101,750 reported deadly overdoses befell within the three hundred and sixty five days finishing in October 2022.
In a news liberate, the FDA mentioned the producer of the Naloxone nasal spray, Narcan, nonetheless determines how a lot the over-the-counter drug will price and when it’s going to change into to be had to the general public.
To see the place the lifesaving drug is lately to be had in each and every Florida county, click here.