By State Attorney Suzy Lopez
“Two of the men I depended on the most are gone,” Lisa Jo Burke said after losing both her son Brandon, and her husband, John, to fentanyl overdoses less than a year apart.
Her words capture the devastation substance abuse can leave behind. Addiction doesn’t only affect the person using drugs. It can tear families apart.
October is National Substance Abuse Prevention Month, and tragedies like this are a reminder that prevention requires more than one approach. As prosecutors, our job is to hold people accountable when they break the law. But there is an important distinction between someone struggling with substance use disorder and someone who profits from selling dangerous drugs in our community.
Sometimes, the person standing in a courtroom is there because addiction has taken over their life. In those cases, jail alone may never solve the problem. For certain nonviolent offenders, drug treatment court gives them a chance to get help while still being held accountable.
It’s not the easy way out. Participants are closely supervised and expected to prove that they are serious about changing their lives. When treatment works, communities become safer and fewer people reoffend.
That is very different from someone who profits by selling dangerous drugs. When a dealer puts fentanyl or other deadly substances into our community, the consequences can be devastating and irreversible. Florida law allows prosecutors to pursue first-degree murder charges when the drugs they sell cause someone’s death. When a family loses a loved one that way, we will use every tool the law gives us to hold the responsible party accountable.
The best outcome is always to prevent the loss in the first place. That starts at home. Talk to your children about the dangers of drugs. If someone you love is struggling, don’t wait for an arrest or an overdose to take it seriously.
National Substance Abuse Prevention Month is a reminder that we all have a role. In our office, that means helping people break free from addiction and holding drug dealers accountable for preying on vulnerable people in our community.
