Deaths from fentanyl illicitly-manufactured pills are surging across the country and right here in our own school district. In the past 18 months, we've lost several students to fentanyl-related poisonings — teenagers who had hopes and dreams and plans. These teenagers had families who loved them and are still coming to grips with their losses.
In its prescription form, fentanyl is known by such names as Actiq®, Duragesic®, and Sublimaze®.4,5
Street names for illegally used fentanyl include Apache, Dance Fever, Friend, Goodfellas, Jackpot, Murder 8, and Tango & Cash, Blues- for their common color (though they can come in other colors) or M30s for the stamp on the pills.
How do people use fentanyl?
When prescribed by a doctor, fentanyl can be given as a shot, a patch that is put on a person’s skin, or as lozenges that are sucked like cough drops.
The illegally used fentanyl most often associated with recent overdoses is made in labs. This synthetic fentanyl is sold illegally as a powder, dropped onto blotter paper, put in eye droppers and nasal sprays, or made into pills that look like other prescription opioids.
540%
INCREASE IN FETANYL
OVERDOSE DEATHS
SINCE 2016 (CDC)
Fentanyl works by binding to the body's opioid receptors, which are found in areas of the brain that control pain and emotions. Its effects include extreme happiness, drowsiness, nausea, confusion, constipation, sedation, tolerance, addiction, respiratory depression and arrest, unconsciousness, coma, and death.
Illegal fentanyl is being mixed with other drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and MDMA. This is especially dangerous because people are often unaware that fentanyl has been added.
Already this year in Washington County, the Westside Interagency Narcotics Team has seized more than 17,000 pills with most suspected as counterfeit “M30" Oxycodone pills. In all of 2020, the team seized fewer than 14,000 pills.
Teens are purchasing what they think are OxyContin, Percoset or Xanax pills via social media, but drug dealers are making these fake pills with the cheaper, stronger and more deadly synthetic drug called fentanyl to increase their profits. Fentanyl is odorless, tasteless and colorless. Teens never know what they’re getting. One pill can kill them. One pill.
National Drug Involved Overdose Deaths-Compare this graph with the following graph
Fake and Fatal: Cal’s Story
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Fake and Fatal- BSD community conversation
Thursday, April 29, 7:00PM