Eric Bedingfield’s son Josh was on the road to recovery after a number of years of struggling with addiction when he relapsed one last time and lost his life.
It was because of Bedingfield’s family tragedy that Gov. Henry McMaster appointed him chairman of the South Carolina Opioid Recovery Fund Board. The board will help decide how at least $360 million in funds from lawsuit settlements with pharmaceutical companies coming to the state over the next 18 years will be spent.
But with the number of suits still in progress, Bedingfield said that number is likely to grow.
The danger of highly potent fentanyl
It was fentanyl that cut short the life of Josh Bedingfield.
The synthetic opioid is 50-100 times stronger than morphine, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Fentanyl is added to heroin to increase its potency or is disguised as highly potent heroin. Many users believe they are purchasing heroin and actually don’t know they are purchasing fentanyl – which often results in overdose deaths, according to the DEA.
Three of the nation’s top wholesale pharmaceutical drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — and opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson were involved in the suit.
Bedingfield was a member of Greenville County Council before being elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. South Carolina Rep. Jay Lucas appointed him to the opioid abuse study committee, and once Bedingfield completed the lengthy report, he resigned from office. He said he felt he wasn’t able to serve his constituents as well as he could, given his family needs.
“I felt like my work concluded at the time,” he said.
A life cut tragically short
Bedingfield describes his son Josh as a great kid and a good student through high school. During his senior year, however, he had gone to a “pill party,” where a number of different pills were available.
“They don’t even know what they’re taking,” he said.
Josh took one pill that gave him an adverse reaction, but unfortunately that didn’t stop the problem. In fact, it was only the beginning.
Josh eventually got deeper into opioid abuse, leading to a heroin addiction. He was in and out of rehab over the next several years, and he eventually got clean for the last couple of years of his life. He had a career as a long-haul truck driver and a couple of children.
A trip to New Jersey, however, took a turn for the worse. His truck had broken down, and he was stranded there over his daughter’s first Easter. The experience wore on him, and he eventually got his hands on some heroin that turned out to be fentanyl. The experience led to a fatal overdose — that was six years go.
“It is a pain that will never leave us,” Bedingfield said.
He has, however, been able to channel his pain into using the settlement funds in a way that will fight opioid abuse rather than become what he sees as another tobacco settlement.
“Funds were spent fixing potholes,” he said of the tobacco settlement.
But because this will be a dedicated fund, it will be limited to nonprofits like the Phoenix Center and state and local governments. The board has already set its bylaws, named a vice chairman and laid out the format and time of its meetings. The first funds are starting to roll in, and the application process should be ready to go in two to four weeks.
“They want to use it as intended,” Bedingfield said.
Fentanyl facts
- Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the FDA for pain relief and for use as an anesthetic.
- It is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin as an analgesic.
- There has been a re-emergence of trafficking, distribution and abuse of illicitly produced fentanyl and fentanyl analogues with a dramatic increase in overdose fatalities — from 2,666 in 2011 to 31,335 in 2018.
Source: DEA
