Current Update on Teens & Drugs

We are well past the time to educate students, teachers, parents and every community across America on fentanyl and its dangers.

While teen drug use has been on the decline for the past few years, teen deaths from overdoses increased in 2020 and 2021, and overall population deaths from fentanyl, specifically, have risen since 2016, with a sharp increase during the pandemic. The situation has escalated so much that some school districts have started to stock naloxone, a drug that can temporarily stop symptoms of an overdose. The Los Angeles Unified School District made the decision to train staff on naloxone use based on concerns about fentanyl exposure.

Oregon just recently announced a bill that would require schools to provide education on the dangers of fentanyl and they are one of the first states to consider offering drug prevention education like this. Unfortunately, it took student deaths from the powerful synthetic opioid to bring this about.

But Oregon is now taking this issue seriously with the passing of this bill by the state house and senate with bipartisan support.  The bill would require several state agencies to develop curriculum that school districts would be required to use. The curriculum would cover the potential risks involved in fentanyl use and the use of other synthetic opioids and highlight laws in Oregon that provide legal immunity for people who seek treatment.

Other states are now getting on the band wagon as well, such as Illinois, Texas, and California, all considering similar legislation. 

 Fentanyl is more potent than other opioids like heroin and oxycodone, meaning smaller amounts can cause a lethal overdose. We are talking about doses that compare to a few grains of salt. Some drug dealers also mix substances, making it possible that a teenager who thought they were taking a different drug could be exposed to fentanyl unknowingly.

State legislation, similar to what is being done in Oregon, would start to confront this problem, requiring curriculum, such as Fentanyl: Fake & Fatal as offered by Steered Straight at https://courses.steeredstraight.org/store, to include information about counterfeit drugs. This kind of information is key to prevention efforts.

While most states address drug prevention in schools—either requiring schools to provide education, or state agencies to make curriculum available—fewer mandate that opioids, specifically, are covered. In many cases, teens are seeking what they think are real pharmaceutical pills to deal with anxiety or other mental health struggles. Others are looking to have ‘some fun.’ They are not seeking fentanyl, so even if they know the dangers, they are unaware of how it can be transmitted to them via other “pills.”

Every state needs to provide fentanyl curriculum so that every student, every teacher, every parent and every coach know what today’s youth are facing.

The goal is to educate with the truth about fentanyl and build skills that can support students to make safer choices.

Steered Straight has the solution. We offer a free online course, Fentanyl: Fake & Fatal, that lays out the facts about fentanyl and what it is doing to our population. It shows you where it is coming from and how it is lining the pockets of drug cartels and drug dealers with no concern for its effects on the user. It covers fake pills and where they come from, shows how fentanyl effects the body and the brain and how to treat a fentanyl overdose.

Take advantage of our free course, Fentanyl: Fake & Fatal, at the Steered Straight Learning Center at www.courses.steeredstraight.org.

Unfortunately, the rate of fatal teen overdoses is on a steep upward trend with fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s important that students, teachers, school administrators, parents and community officials know more about it and how to handle its effects.

Where does fentanyl come from?

Street fentanyl can come from two sources:

• Illegal drug labs
• Patches that have been sold by or stolen from people they were prescribed to.

On the streets, Fentanyl is also known as Apache, China girl, China town, China white, murder 8, jackpot, poison, TNT, tango and cash.

What does it look like?

Most street fentanyl is produced illegally as a powder or a pill.  It is often mixed with other drugs such as heroin or cocaine. Street fentanyl may be swallowed, smoked, snorted or injected. Fentanyl is released from prescription patches by smoking or chewing. Many overdoses have occurred because people did not know that what they were taking was contaminated with fentanyl.

What happens in a fentanyl overdose?

When someone overdoses on fentanyl, they first become sleepy and it is hard to wake them. Their breathing becomes slow and shallow and they may snore or pass out.  The person’s body may become limp, their face pale or clammy, and their pulse weak or slow. For lighter-skinned people, the lips and fingertips may turn blue or purple. For darker-skinned people, the inside of the lips may become blue or purple.

If someone is overdosing, call 911 right away!

While you are waiting for medical help to arrive, use a naloxone kit to temporarily reverse the effects of the overdose. Naloxone is a medication that can temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and allow time for medical help to arrive.

Fentanyl Tainted Pills Bought on Social Media Cause Youth Drug Deaths to Soar

Teenagers and young adults are turning to Snapchat, TikTok and other social media apps to find Percocet, Xanax and other pills. The vast majority are laced with deadly doses of fentanyl. Although experimental drug use by teenagers in the United States has been dropping since 2010, their deaths from fentanyl have skyrocketed, from 253 in 2019 to 884 in 2021.

Supplies of tainted pills, crudely pressed by Mexican cartels with chemicals from China and India, have escalated commensurately. Fentanyl, faster and cheaper to produce than heroin and 50 times as potent, made for a highly addictive filler. Last year, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized 20.4 million counterfeit pills, which experts estimate represent a small fraction of those produced. Truth be told, about 4 out of 10 pills contain lethal doses of fentanyl.

Today, there are drug sellers on every major social media platform, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok and emerging platforms like Discord and Telegram.

As long as our youth are on one of those platforms, they’re going to have the potential to be exposed to drug sellers. Let’s educate them so they don’t become a fatality!