[h=3]Pima County report on opioid use shows it's widespread[/h] Friday, September 1st 2017, 5:47 pm PDTFriday, September 1st 2017, 8:50 pm PDTBy Bud Foster, Reporter
... "We know that it is everywhere," said Dr. Francisco Garcia, the Chief Medical Officer and Assistant County Administrator for Pima County, who helped prepare the survey. "There is not a corner of the community that is not impacted by this."
But while the opioid issue in Pima County likely cannot be called a crisis or epidemic, it does not mean it's not serious.
"There is a tendency in our country and our culture to have a disease of the week," Garcia said. "Opioids happens to be that today."
Most of the opioid deaths in Pima County are the result of a mixture of drugs which is especially dangerous.
"Somebody who has some alcohol, the oxycodone for the knee injury and maybe one or two other things, that would have a compounding effect of taking all of those things at the same time," said Dr. Gregory Hess, the Chief Medical Examiner and contributor to the survey. "That may result in death."
