Combatting Addiction: Rehab facilities concerned by emergence of highly lethal 'ISO'

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (CBS12) — As more potent, lethal drugs like fentanyl circulate in the streets, mental health and substance abuse rehabilitation centers across the country and the state are working overtime to help save lives.

“We’re at war and we may or may not be winning this war against drugs," said Dr. Monica Breedlove, the Detox Medical Director at New Horizons of the Treasure Coast in Fort Pierce. "The ones that they were able to create in a lab or somebody’s kitchen, we’re fighting an uphill battle.”

Dr. Breedlove says that combatting addiction is more challenging nowadays because of the higher potency of modern-day opioids.

The doctor explained that they provide medical supportive care and preventive harm reduction at New Horizons, but that’s not where recovery begins.

“They need a listening ear and they need a plan, that is a critical part of recovery. We have aa programs, we have all sorts of resources available and if there is a big psychiatric component, we even have a psychiatric facility here," she told CBS12 News Thursday. "I live in solutions, not problems so that the viewpoint that we work from.”

Approximately 70 patients are currently at the facility, trying to leave behind the habits that have taken many lives.

Because of facilities like New Horizons, officials say overdose deaths have actually started to decline in Florida.

The problem is that fentanyl, a lethal drug that has unquestionably been the biggest driver in overdose deaths in recent years, maybe taking a back seat to an even more menacing lab concoction: isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid known simply as ‘ISO.’

“This is 20, sometimes 50 times more potent than fentanyl and fentanyl is up to 100 times more potent than morphine”, Dr. Breedlove revealed.

West Palm Beach Police told CBS12 News Wednesday night that they had encountered the drug.

“You take two of these, you’re dropping. It’s going to kill you,” Lt. Joe Herb of the Organized Crime Unit said at the press conference.

Dr. Breedlove says the drug can be so potent that a single dose of Narcan is powerless to stop it.

“Synthetic opioids like ISO, like fentanyl, like the nitazenes obviously, those ones respond to Narcan but not the same amount," she explained. "The normal intranasal dosages of Narcan that you give, you may need to give more Narcan in order to reverse the effects.”

She says New Horizons and every other similar facility in the region has to brace for impact.