State News

We Get an Overview of Fentanyl

WGCU | By Julie Glenn,

Published April 23, 2018 at 10:02 AM EDT

Ball-and-stick model of the fentanyl molecule

It's been just over two years since Prince died of an overdose caused by taking what turned out to be fake Vicodin laced with fentanyl. We're hearing the word fentanyl show up in more and more news stories as the cause of overdoses during the ongoing opioid crisis, so we thought now would be a good time to dig deeper into the topic. We're joined by Brenda Iliff, Executive Director of the Hazelden Betty Ford facility in Naples, for a bit of a history lesson about the drug, and how it's winding up on the streets.

State News

Julie Glenn

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

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Mike Kiniry

Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.

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Rachel Iacovone

RachelIacovoneis a reporter and associate producer ofGulf Coast LiveforWGCU News. Rachel came toWGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.

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