March 31, 2023 • 11 mins
Text your grey haired host for a shout out on an upcoming show!
In Brevard County, Florida, seniors are increasingly becoming addicted to opiods and othe prescrption painkillers.
In this episode of The Great American Senior Show, Brevard County Sherif Wayne Ivey explores the situation with host Sam Yates and offers advice and tips to keep seniors safe.
We also hear a heart tugging tale of a non-senior. A mom thanks Sheriff Ivey for placing her son in jail. The reason she thanks the Sheriff may bring tears to your eyes.
The Great American Senior Show podcast is produced by Yates & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing. This podcast is part of the network of podcasts streaming under the umbrella of the Pod National News Network. For more information about Yates & Associates or the Pod National News Network, contact Sam Yates at (772) 528-5185 or Sam@Yatespro.com. Sponsorship opportunities are available. The Great American Senior Show is ranked 3rd Best in Senior Podcasts to Follow for 2023 in all podcasts for seniors in a comprehensive survey by feedspot.
30 Best Senior Podcasts You Must Follow in 2023 (feedspot.com)
Yates & Associates is a full-service Public Relations and Marketing company serving select clients throughout the United States and abroad. For more information visit www.YatesPRO.com .
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Yates (00:11):
Hello, everyone and welcome to another exciting
edition of The Great AmericanSenior Show. I'm your grey
haired host, Sam Yates. Andtoday another special episode
Sheriff Wayne Ivey, BrevardCounty is joining us and
Sheriff, welcome back to theprogram.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (00:26):
Oh, thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me. And
thanks for all you do to reachour seniors and our businesses
with what I believe is relativeinformation to keeping them safe
and their businesses safe andtheir customers safe.
Sam Yates (00:38):
You know, and I think that's important. And one of the
areas that we have not touchedon in the last year that we've
been doing this is that ofseniors and drugs. And sometimes
I think everyone thinks thatGrandpa Joe not going to have a
problem with drugs. And at sometimes just the opposite, because
they're prescribed something bya doctor. And the next thing you
(00:59):
know, they're hooked on it, orthey find other ways of getting
into the drug scene. Tell uswhat you're seeing among our
seniors in Brevard County. Yeah.
So
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (01:07):
Sam, probably the best place to start
with that is to talk about theopioid epidemic. And what we're
seeing with it is, you know,I've been a law enforcement
officer for 42, almost 43 yearsnow. And one of the things that
I will tell you is through theyears, we have always, you know,
said, you know, crack cocaine isthe worst thing we ever faced,
(01:29):
heroin is the worst thing weever faced, sadly, we were
wrong. What we're facing nowwith this opioid epidemic is is
the toughest, most difficultthing to combat that we've ever
faced. And one of the thingsthat makes it so difficult to
combat is it knows no stranger,this this drug, and it's its
death components. No, nostranger, it doesn't matter if
(01:51):
it's the, you know, 18 year oldthat, that has, you know,
sampled other drugs before andnow is addicted to it, or a 70
year old that had hipreplacement surgery and, and got
addicted to it through thatmechanism. So we are seeing
deaths, overdose deaths likewe've never seen before.
Certainly fentanyl is playing amassive part in that. And the
(02:14):
open access to our borders isplaying a big part in the
increase in fentanyl that we'reseeing in our country. So with
all of these dynamics, it's theperfect storm that's that's
brewing out there to, to takeour citizens lives.
Sam Yates (02:29):
And Brevard County and looking at the statistics
is, is high up there, I thinkit's about number six in the
state of Florida with thosetypes of deaths. So how are you
fighting?
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (02:40):
So you know, our thing is to find it at every
level. And when when you look athow you lower your crime rate or
how you go after a certainelement of the crime, you have
to book into. And by booking it,what I mean is you have to be
very aggressive, and going afterthose that are breaking the law,
you own the on the backside ofit, you have to be very
(03:01):
aggressive, equally asaggressive, and trying to
rehabilitate those. And when youlook at those that are that are
falling to addiction of this.
And those that are peddlingthis, you got you got several
different target areas. Targetnumber one is to go after those
that are are making a fortune,off of the addictions of other
their greed is driving the saleof this narcotic. So you know,
(03:24):
we go after the dealers, we wantto lock them up and keep them
locked up. We're blessed, we gota state attorney that works with
us, in the name of Phil Archer,who works with us. And the
second thing is to identifythose that are dealers, those
that are continual drug abusers,and those that have fallen prey
to to this this new war, if youwill. And when you do that, what
(03:50):
you start seeing is, there arethose that tried it for the very
first time and got addicted toit. You know, I testified before
Congress back in 2019. And I satnext to a lady that was the
department of the Director ofthe Department of Health and I
think Vermont or Delaware. Andshe she spoke about there are
certain people in this worldthat have a predisposed
(04:10):
addiction to to opiates. And soyou don't know if that's you,
you don't know if it's me, youdon't know. And so, you know, a
doctor unknowingly prescribes itto you and here you are, or a
doctor gives it to you and youtake more than you're supposed
to. So, you know, we've tried tocreate a number of different
(04:32):
mechanisms to help those thatare truly the ones that are
addicted, not the ones that areabusing and there's a difference
between that when I look atthose that are that have been
lifelong drug addicts, that thatperson is going to be addicted
to whatever drug comes outthere. When when I look at the
fact that some of our veteransare getting addicted to this 16
(04:53):
year olds that broke their legin a motorcycle wreck or getting
addicted to this. We have Wehave created some some pillars,
if you will, veterans court tohelp our veterans that are going
through this, we've created drugcourt, where the judge and the
state attorney do a great job atkind of peeling out who needs
help and who needs to be put inprison. And then we try and
(05:16):
rehabilitate those and get themback into our society as a
productive member of society. Soyou book it, you hit it hard,
equally as hard on both ends,
Sam Yates (05:26):
you use the word help. And when I talk to people
in the community, that issomething that resonates, it's
not punish, but help. Andthere's a big difference.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (05:37):
Sure. And so the most important part of that
big difference is determiningwho needs it? And who will
accept it. Is the person goingto accept the help? And are they
going to work within the modulesthat are there? Or are they
somebody that like I said, isabused every drug on the planet,
and I was never going to comeout of it, you know. And to give
you a true, I think the bestexample I can give anybody of
(06:03):
just how impacting this drug is.
I can't tell you how many phonecalls, personal contacts,
emails, all of these things thatI've had from moms, that have
told me that the only time theysleep well at night is when
their child, their son ordaughter is in my jail, because
they know at least in there,they're not going to overdose,
(06:25):
they're not going to get killedin a drug rip off. When jail is
what a mom believes is thesafest place for their child. It
truly sets the stage for whatthis opioid epidemic is like.
Sam Yates (06:38):
Speaking of moms and children, it can be a child of
any age, but moms grandparents,with teens and younger adults,
there are certain buzzwords thatthey may not recognize. And I
remember sitting in on a sessionwith some of your staff at I
want to say it was at one of thethe the high schools where they
(07:00):
were explaining to parents whoare there, these are the words
when they say this word, it's adrug. And that that education
part is something that I thinkyou're doing quite well and
taking out to the schools.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (07:13):
Yeah. So you know, we have a great footprint
in our schools, our CrimePrevention Unit, J Martinez,
Ashley, Jenny, all of them, theyare out there pushing out to
these kids, you know, to thehazards of this the dangers of
this? Well, in 124 month period.
If you go back to I believe itwas in 2019. In 124 month
period, we had 172 overdosedeaths in Brevard County. So you
(07:38):
know, that puts intoperspective, the volume of
people that are falling victimto this and, and a lot of times
people ask me, Why are you sofocused on illegal immigration?
We're not a border state? Well,first of all, yes, we are. All
right. We're seeing people comecome across our border of
Florida into the United Statesevery day. But But secondly,
(08:00):
when you look at the influx offentanyl, that we have seen
coming into our country withessentially open borders,
because that's what we reallyhave. We have to do something
illegal immigration doesn't stopat the border, it filters into
every community in this country.
And the effects of it willspread out and choke us if we
(08:23):
don't stop it. And so, you know,that's that's one of the things
I'm in 2019, we took off threepounds of fentanyl. Three
pounds, Sam is enough that ifyou put it into a lethal dose,
it would kill every citizen inBrevard County. And so we know
that came across the border, weknow where it went, and how it
came to us. And so we're goingto continue to push hard to
(08:45):
look, you know, we sometimes getpushed back because we'll say
something about somebody we'vearrested or whatever, and we'll
get pushed back. They'll say,Oh, well, well, that person is
just addicted to drugs. Well, wewe have to enforce the law. And
if that person's addictionscauses them to break the law,
our job is to enforce the law.
And so we arrest that person.
(09:06):
And then there are mechanisms inplace, drug court, veterans
court, those things that canhelp identify what direction
this what path this personreally needs to go down.
Sam Yates (09:17):
Can our seniors become involved in some of the
things that you're doing?
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (09:20):
Yeah, so absolutely. You know, I mean,
one of the things that weencourage our seniors to do is
to stay educated stay aware ofthe hazards you know, you talked
about the names and things a lotago but a great way to do that
is to come be part of ourCitizens Academy. We we have a
remarkable Citizens Academyagain, credit to our community
(09:42):
relations unit Crime PreventionUnit for running a great
citizens can become an assistantAcademy. It's an eye opening
experience, not only gives you aa backroom, look at everything
the sheriff's office does, butit gives you a front row view of
what's going on in the world.
Who's eligible. Anybody Yeah,even you say amateur age,
Sam Yates (10:01):
you don't have chuckling, because the gray
haired host is just that a grayhaired host. So don't be
surprised if you see me out inthe audience there at the
academy, because I really dobelieve that you're doing a
great job and anything that Ican do to help bolster what you
are doing for our seniors andall of our citizens here, you
(10:23):
know, I'm going to be standingin the front line to pitch in
and, you know,
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (10:27):
there's so many ways to volunteer to in our
agency, you know, from, youknow, our citizens on patrol or
our you know, animal shelter andwalking dogs, you know, just all
sorts of different things thatwe have. And another thing that
I'll point out too is you arenever too old to work for the
(10:49):
Brevard County Sheriff's Office.
We we are always hiring and andyou know, whether that position
is in maritime security or thatposition is in
telecommunications as one of ourcomm Center employees. I tell
some people you can be too youngto work for the Sheriff's
Office, but you're never tooold.
Sam Yates (11:06):
I am the voice of experience. And that's that's
how I look at the aging process.
It's more experience under mybelt. Sure if I want to thank
you very much for joining usagain, one additional question.
Can you come back?
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (11:20):
Oh, absolutely. I'd love to man
let's let's do it as many timesas we can and get as much
information out there as we cansay
Sam Yates (11:26):
we are going to do that Sheriff Wayne IV my special
guest today on the greatAmerican senior Show. I'm your
grey haired Host Sam Yates Havea great day everybody.
Hello, everyone and welcome to another exciting
edition of The Great AmericanSenior Show. I'm your grey
haired host, Sam Yates. Andtoday another special episode
Sheriff Wayne Ivey, BrevardCounty is joining us and
Sheriff, welcome back to theprogram.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (00:26):
Oh, thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me. And
thanks for all you do to reachour seniors and our businesses
with what I believe is relativeinformation to keeping them safe
and their businesses safe andtheir customers safe.
Sam Yates (00:38):
You know, and I think that's important. And one of the
areas that we have not touchedon in the last year that we've
been doing this is that ofseniors and drugs. And sometimes
I think everyone thinks thatGrandpa Joe not going to have a
problem with drugs. And at sometimes just the opposite, because
they're prescribed something bya doctor. And the next thing you
(00:59):
know, they're hooked on it, orthey find other ways of getting
into the drug scene. Tell uswhat you're seeing among our
seniors in Brevard County. Yeah.
So
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (01:07):
Sam, probably the best place to start
with that is to talk about theopioid epidemic. And what we're
seeing with it is, you know,I've been a law enforcement
officer for 42, almost 43 yearsnow. And one of the things that
I will tell you is through theyears, we have always, you know,
said, you know, crack cocaine isthe worst thing we ever faced,
(01:29):
heroin is the worst thing weever faced, sadly, we were
wrong. What we're facing nowwith this opioid epidemic is is
the toughest, most difficultthing to combat that we've ever
faced. And one of the thingsthat makes it so difficult to
combat is it knows no stranger,this this drug, and it's its
death components. No, nostranger, it doesn't matter if
(01:51):
it's the, you know, 18 year oldthat, that has, you know,
sampled other drugs before andnow is addicted to it, or a 70
year old that had hipreplacement surgery and, and got
addicted to it through thatmechanism. So we are seeing
deaths, overdose deaths likewe've never seen before.
Certainly fentanyl is playing amassive part in that. And the
(02:14):
open access to our borders isplaying a big part in the
increase in fentanyl that we'reseeing in our country. So with
all of these dynamics, it's theperfect storm that's that's
brewing out there to, to takeour citizens lives.
Sam Yates (02:29):
And Brevard County and looking at the statistics
is, is high up there, I thinkit's about number six in the
state of Florida with thosetypes of deaths. So how are you
fighting?
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (02:40):
So you know, our thing is to find it at every
level. And when when you look athow you lower your crime rate or
how you go after a certainelement of the crime, you have
to book into. And by booking it,what I mean is you have to be
very aggressive, and going afterthose that are breaking the law,
you own the on the backside ofit, you have to be very
(03:01):
aggressive, equally asaggressive, and trying to
rehabilitate those. And when youlook at those that are that are
falling to addiction of this.
And those that are peddlingthis, you got you got several
different target areas. Targetnumber one is to go after those
that are are making a fortune,off of the addictions of other
their greed is driving the saleof this narcotic. So you know,
(03:24):
we go after the dealers, we wantto lock them up and keep them
locked up. We're blessed, we gota state attorney that works with
us, in the name of Phil Archer,who works with us. And the
second thing is to identifythose that are dealers, those
that are continual drug abusers,and those that have fallen prey
to to this this new war, if youwill. And when you do that, what
(03:50):
you start seeing is, there arethose that tried it for the very
first time and got addicted toit. You know, I testified before
Congress back in 2019. And I satnext to a lady that was the
department of the Director ofthe Department of Health and I
think Vermont or Delaware. Andshe she spoke about there are
certain people in this worldthat have a predisposed
(04:10):
addiction to to opiates. And soyou don't know if that's you,
you don't know if it's me, youdon't know. And so, you know, a
doctor unknowingly prescribes itto you and here you are, or a
doctor gives it to you and youtake more than you're supposed
to. So, you know, we've tried tocreate a number of different
(04:32):
mechanisms to help those thatare truly the ones that are
addicted, not the ones that areabusing and there's a difference
between that when I look atthose that are that have been
lifelong drug addicts, that thatperson is going to be addicted
to whatever drug comes outthere. When when I look at the
fact that some of our veteransare getting addicted to this 16
(04:53):
year olds that broke their legin a motorcycle wreck or getting
addicted to this. We have Wehave created some some pillars,
if you will, veterans court tohelp our veterans that are going
through this, we've created drugcourt, where the judge and the
state attorney do a great job atkind of peeling out who needs
help and who needs to be put inprison. And then we try and
(05:16):
rehabilitate those and get themback into our society as a
productive member of society. Soyou book it, you hit it hard,
equally as hard on both ends,
Sam Yates (05:26):
you use the word help. And when I talk to people
in the community, that issomething that resonates, it's
not punish, but help. Andthere's a big difference.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (05:37):
Sure. And so the most important part of that
big difference is determiningwho needs it? And who will
accept it. Is the person goingto accept the help? And are they
going to work within the modulesthat are there? Or are they
somebody that like I said, isabused every drug on the planet,
and I was never going to comeout of it, you know. And to give
you a true, I think the bestexample I can give anybody of
(06:03):
just how impacting this drug is.
I can't tell you how many phonecalls, personal contacts,
emails, all of these things thatI've had from moms, that have
told me that the only time theysleep well at night is when
their child, their son ordaughter is in my jail, because
they know at least in there,they're not going to overdose,
(06:25):
they're not going to get killedin a drug rip off. When jail is
what a mom believes is thesafest place for their child. It
truly sets the stage for whatthis opioid epidemic is like.
Sam Yates (06:38):
Speaking of moms and children, it can be a child of
any age, but moms grandparents,with teens and younger adults,
there are certain buzzwords thatthey may not recognize. And I
remember sitting in on a sessionwith some of your staff at I
want to say it was at one of thethe the high schools where they
(07:00):
were explaining to parents whoare there, these are the words
when they say this word, it's adrug. And that that education
part is something that I thinkyou're doing quite well and
taking out to the schools.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (07:13):
Yeah. So you know, we have a great footprint
in our schools, our CrimePrevention Unit, J Martinez,
Ashley, Jenny, all of them, theyare out there pushing out to
these kids, you know, to thehazards of this the dangers of
this? Well, in 124 month period.
If you go back to I believe itwas in 2019. In 124 month
period, we had 172 overdosedeaths in Brevard County. So you
(07:38):
know, that puts intoperspective, the volume of
people that are falling victimto this and, and a lot of times
people ask me, Why are you sofocused on illegal immigration?
We're not a border state? Well,first of all, yes, we are. All
right. We're seeing people comecome across our border of
Florida into the United Statesevery day. But But secondly,
(08:00):
when you look at the influx offentanyl, that we have seen
coming into our country withessentially open borders,
because that's what we reallyhave. We have to do something
illegal immigration doesn't stopat the border, it filters into
every community in this country.
And the effects of it willspread out and choke us if we
(08:23):
don't stop it. And so, you know,that's that's one of the things
I'm in 2019, we took off threepounds of fentanyl. Three
pounds, Sam is enough that ifyou put it into a lethal dose,
it would kill every citizen inBrevard County. And so we know
that came across the border, weknow where it went, and how it
came to us. And so we're goingto continue to push hard to
(08:45):
look, you know, we sometimes getpushed back because we'll say
something about somebody we'vearrested or whatever, and we'll
get pushed back. They'll say,Oh, well, well, that person is
just addicted to drugs. Well, wewe have to enforce the law. And
if that person's addictionscauses them to break the law,
our job is to enforce the law.
And so we arrest that person.
(09:06):
And then there are mechanisms inplace, drug court, veterans
court, those things that canhelp identify what direction
this what path this personreally needs to go down.
Sam Yates (09:17):
Can our seniors become involved in some of the
things that you're doing?
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (09:20):
Yeah, so absolutely. You know, I mean,
one of the things that weencourage our seniors to do is
to stay educated stay aware ofthe hazards you know, you talked
about the names and things a lotago but a great way to do that
is to come be part of ourCitizens Academy. We we have a
remarkable Citizens Academyagain, credit to our community
(09:42):
relations unit Crime PreventionUnit for running a great
citizens can become an assistantAcademy. It's an eye opening
experience, not only gives you aa backroom, look at everything
the sheriff's office does, butit gives you a front row view of
what's going on in the world.
Who's eligible. Anybody Yeah,even you say amateur age,
Sam Yates (10:01):
you don't have chuckling, because the gray
haired host is just that a grayhaired host. So don't be
surprised if you see me out inthe audience there at the
academy, because I really dobelieve that you're doing a
great job and anything that Ican do to help bolster what you
are doing for our seniors andall of our citizens here, you
(10:23):
know, I'm going to be standingin the front line to pitch in
and, you know,
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (10:27):
there's so many ways to volunteer to in our
agency, you know, from, youknow, our citizens on patrol or
our you know, animal shelter andwalking dogs, you know, just all
sorts of different things thatwe have. And another thing that
I'll point out too is you arenever too old to work for the
(10:49):
Brevard County Sheriff's Office.
We we are always hiring and andyou know, whether that position
is in maritime security or thatposition is in
telecommunications as one of ourcomm Center employees. I tell
some people you can be too youngto work for the Sheriff's
Office, but you're never tooold.
Sam Yates (11:06):
I am the voice of experience. And that's that's
how I look at the aging process.
It's more experience under mybelt. Sure if I want to thank
you very much for joining usagain, one additional question.
Can you come back?
Sheriff Wayne Ivey (11:20):
Oh, absolutely. I'd love to man
let's let's do it as many timesas we can and get as much
information out there as we cansay
Sam Yates (11:26):
we are going to do that Sheriff Wayne IV my special
guest today on the greatAmerican senior Show. I'm your
grey haired Host Sam Yates Havea great day everybody.
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