Fentanyl

A special committee from the Jacksonville City Council warns that the uptick in overdoses comes from fentanyl-laced products, often leading to death.

Authorities said they recovered 1.8 million counterfeit pills laced with enough fentanyl to kill 700,000 Americans. "One pill can kill," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Thursday.

Data from the CDC show that overdose deaths last year increased nearly 30% across the country. In Florida, the rate increased more than 37%.

Experts say lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions isolated those with drug addictions and made treatment harder to get.

Rep. Vern Buchanan of Sarasota introduced legislation that would permanently classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs.

Officials say the pandemic and dealers who mix fentanyl with other drugs have contributed to the increase in overdose deaths in Florida.

His sentencing is the culmination of a months-long criminal trial that resulted in the first successful prosecution of pharmaceutical executives tied to the opioid epidemic.

Public health officials are adopting a law-enforcement tool, the mass spectrometer, to instantly identify potentially deadly levels of opioids in local drug supplies.

A drug maker accused of using bribes and kickbacks to encourage doctors to prescribe a highly addictive opioid painkiller has won a partial reprieve in federal court.

Offenders caught with small amounts of most drugs could be sent to jail but not prison under a bill approved by a Florida Senate committee. The Senate…