Heroin continues to be the most lethal drug killing Floridians.

20:15 Heroin continues to be the most lethal drug killing Floridians. 1 Comments

The four drugs where more than 50 percent of the deaths were caused by the drug when the drug was found, were heroin (86.9 percent), methadone (73.4 percent), fentanyl (56.4 percent), and oxycodone (56.1 percent), according the The Florida Department of Law Enforcement report released this morning. The information is for the first six months of the year and provided by Florida medical examiners.During that period there were approximately 88,500 deaths in Florida. Of those, 4,199 individuals were found to have died with one or more of the drugs specified in this report in their bodies.Deaths caused by heroin increased by 20.5 percent over the last half of 2008.
The report also indicates that prescription drugs continued to be found more often than illicit drugs in both lethal and non-lethal levels during the first part of this year. Prescription drugs account for 79 percent of all drug occurrences in this report when alcohol is excluded. According to the report, in Fort Myers 19 people who died had lethal levels of oxycodone; 17 had lethal levels of methadone; 16 had lethal levels of alprazolan; seven had lethal levels of morphine; seven had lethal levels of cocaine; four had lethal levels of heroin; four had lethal levels of hydrocodone; and two had lethal levels of propoxyphene.