Overdose deaths in Jacksonville have dropped by more than half since 2022.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said it is all thanks to proactive narcotics investigations.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThese units have been hard at work removing dangerous narcotics from our community and arresting traffickers who profit from pushing poison in our city,\u201d Waters said.<\/p>\n In 2021, the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office created the narcotics overdose death investigations unit in response to the exposure toxicity deaths. Waters said this was mainly driven by the entry of synthetic opioids in the street narcotics market.<\/p>\n Those specialized detectives are tasked with investigating overdose deaths to build manslaughter cases against drug traffickers who source lethal drugs or narcotics.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n And now numbers from JSO show the impact.<\/p>\n In 2022, JSO investigated 472 overdose deaths. That number dropped to 433 in 2023, then 317 in 2024, and so far this year, it\u2019s down to 221 overdose deaths.<\/p>\n Based on those investigations, the unit has already arrested 17 drug dealers on manslaughter charges in 2025.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Waters had a message for traffickers.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a drug trafficker in Jacksonville, stay away from here,\u201d Waters said. \u201cDon\u2019t come here. We don\u2019t want you here and keep your poison out of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n The sheriff said many of their narcotics investigations are spearheaded by complaints from concerned citizens. He is encouraging folks to continue to report things to the agency.<\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overdose deaths in Jacksonville have dropped by more than half since 2022. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said it…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":359282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,202022,3188,723,7347,7310,16047,69586,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-436567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-drug-traffickers","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-free-action-news-jax","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office","15":"tag-narcotics","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115692263546417017","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}