On Tuesday morning, Fort Walton Beach Police Chief Robert Bage was presenting at the city’s Strategic Planning session at the annex.

During his presentation, Chief Bage was giving a breakdown of his department and he mentioned the officers in charge of VICE & Narcotics Crimes.

“I can tell you, overdoses is something that we’re having a huge spike,” said Chief Bage. “When I first got here, they were high. They went down a little bit and I don’t know if it’s because of COVID, stimulus money, people cooped-up in houses, people coming down because Florida is one of the only places that are open…but we’ve seen a dramatic increases in overdoses.”

“In South Florida, we’d probably give Narcan, as the police, once a year or twice a year,” continued Chief Bage. “I can tell you, my officers probably give Narcan weekly here in the City of Fort Walton Beach to somebody that is overdosing. And unfortunately, a lot of these overdoses are resulting in deaths because the quality of the drugs are not good.”

According to Bage, his department will continue to strive to reduce the overdose numbers they are seeing.