Recovering addicts in SWFL weigh in on Trump’s opioid plan

Kristina Miller of Buckingham lost her brother to the opioid epidemic—after overcoming her own addiction to a doctor’s post-surgery prescription of pain killers.

“We got a life sentence of a heartache. We’ll never get over this,” Miller said. “That’s a call the doctor should make – no more, not to continue to give people stuff that should only be for end of life terminal or something like that.”

The number of deaths from opioids more than doubled in Lee County last year compared to in 2016.

“We know that 66 percent of people who get opioids illegally get them from us. They get them from parents, or grandparents, or neighbors,” said Deborah Comella, the executive director of the Lee County Coalition for a Drug-Free SWFL.

While Miller says doctors were her and her brother’s problem, she thinks President Trump’s plan to put drug dealers to death is a step in the right direction.

“Make them go to the morgue. Make them realize what’s coming of this. You’re taking people’s lives,” Miller said.

But Hank Bertodatto, a recovering alcoholic who’s lost more than a dozen friends to opioids, doesn’t think the death penalty will help.

“It’s a vicious cycle and I don’t think that by scaring people into the death penalty is really going to stop the problem,” Bertodatto said.

President Trump’s plan calls for up to $13 billion of funding for treatment.

MORE: Trump opioid plan calls for death penalty for drug traffickers