Community shows support for St. Johns opioid town hall

A former opioid addict is sharing her story, hoping to save lives.

“I found my boyfriend of a long time, dead, and my baby daddy, overdosed,” said the now-former addict, who only wanted to go by Anna.

Anna spoke out at an opioid town hall Wednesday night.

Experts weighed-in on how we fight this epidemic, in a discussion moderated by Action News Jax Anchor John Bachman.

The St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners chambers erupted with applause when Anna announced she has been clean since November 2017.

“I was a hardcore addict for a long time, in the last three years I went from pills when everything went -- all the pharmacies were closing down, all the pill mills and such -- heroin was always a cheaper option, and when you turn to that it’s a whole [different] world,” Anna said.

St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar, Superintendent Tim Forson, and health and addiction experts made up the panel for the town hall.

“This is an issue, a phenomenon, that none of us could have predicted, and affects us literally every day of our working lives,” Shoar said.

More than 64,000 Americans died last year due to opioid overdose. Thirty-five came from St. Johns County alone.

Listen to more on the opioid epidemic with the Family Focus special 'The Opioid Epidemic - Local Communities in Crisis':

Cox Media Group