Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr held a press conference today where he announced a Statewide Opioid Task Force had been created. The goal of the Task Force is to provide “an infrastructure of communication between organizations in the public, private and non-profit sectors that are combating and are impacted by this critical issue.” You can track the progress of the Statewide Opioid Task Force’s progress here.
Some statements from Carr’s press conference:
- “Last year, 982 people in the state of Georgia died from an opioid-related drug overdose.”
- “From June of 2016 to May of 2017, the total number of opioid doses legally prescribed to Georgia patients surpassed 541 million. That is roughly 54 legal doses for every man, woman and child in Georgia.”
- “In addition to impacting younger demographics, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans age 45 to 64 accounted for roughly 44 percent of deaths from overdoses in 2013 and 2014.”
- “And, I want to point out that as we continue to cut down on our problem with prescription drugs and addiction, dependency is going to cause an increase in the demand for illegal, counterfeit substances hitting our streets… as the GBI crime lab and folks down in Macon know all too well. “
The full remarks from AG Carr’s press conference can be found here.