The New Drug Talk Film

I just had no fear of dying, you know? I didn't think that was part of what drugs could do to somebody, but it had fentanyl in it. I instantly just... I died, flatlined on the floor in front of my mom and little sister. All I know that happened after that was what they told me. I wasn't breathing for 20 minutes, and they tried CPR and Narcan and everything. One of the paramedics ended up breaking my ribs to get me to start breathing again. I woke up three days later in the hospital and had no idea what happened. Just by the grace of God, a local teenager died from a suspected fentanyl overdose. We've lost two students to overdoses just in the past two months. A 17-year-old daughter is the latest local high school student to die accidentally after taking pills laced with fentanyl. Sons died from fentanyl poisoning in just one day. There were more than a dozen drug overdoses, and six can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin. Drug deaths among children more than tripled from 2019 to 2020. This is truly an unprecedented time. We're at a point in the United States where each week, the equivalent of a classroom of high school students dies of overdose.

People might be surprised to know that youth substance use has actually been on a downward trend for 20 years. High schoolers' use of illicit substances, excluding marijuana and alcohol, is well below 10%, but their deaths have skyrocketed, particularly in the last couple of years, because of fentanyl found in fake pills and other substances. Since about the mid-2000s, we started to see this very potent synthetic opioid called fentanyl emerge on the drug landscape, first in the heroin supply and then used by drug traffickers to produce counterfeit prescription pills. These are completely fake pills. A lot of young adults in America are getting these pills on social media—Snapchat, WhatsApp, Discord, even Facebook Messenger—or just from friends, or "plugs," their local drug dealers. Our kids think they're real and safe, but it's a deadly mistake.

Fentanyl is an opioid at least 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin. Because it's so potent, fentanyl can kill within minutes, particularly for teenagers who may have never been exposed to an opioid before and have no tolerance built up. It's especially risky when mixed with other substances. With illicit fentanyl, you don't know how much you're using, and frequently, it is combined with another drug, whether contaminating heroin or cocaine. It's mixed drug use, which is extremely dangerous and difficult to treat in the ER. You don't even know what's in the drugs you're about to consume; it could be your last time using, even if it's your first.

Mary and I got into this world after losing our son Charlie in 2020. Charlie was a 22-year-old college senior when he went online and got what he was told was a Percocet. He was familiar with Percocet from a back surgery he'd had about a year and a half before his death, so he knew what Percocet would do to him. He had a job interview and had just driven back to college after unwillingly living with his parents for a couple of months. When he got back to campus, his back was hurting, and he had a job interview on the phone, so he got a pill off-script that he was told was a legitimate medication. He died from it on a random Thursday afternoon. It shocked Mary and me because we knew Charlie did not have a substance use problem. He didn't have any diagnosed mental health issues; he had all the normal stresses of a young person getting ready to launch his life. It was a crazy time because of COVID, but Charlie is a prime example of this new category of victim—young people who are familiar with these medicines, think they're safe, and end up being poisoned because the pills are not what they were presented as. It turned out to be fentanyl, and that's what killed Charlie. It really is an equal-opportunity crisis. There's no geographic, gender, or socioeconomic boundary. Everyone is at risk, and everyone has a stake in making sure we come up with better solutions.

When asked to describe the danger of fentanyl, only 58% of high schoolers listed fentanyl as dangerous, far below the number who said cocaine or heroin were dangerous and about equal to those who said cigarettes were dangerous. The problem is that fentanyl causes 12 times more deaths than cocaine or heroin, yet teenagers rate it as far less dangerous. Kids need to realize that even if a pill comes from their best friend, it's most likely not safe because the drug supply right now is not safe.

Producers of illicit drugs supplying the black market for street drugs have shifted away from plant-based products like heroin to synthetic chemicals like fentanyl. This makes these drugs extremely profitable and changes everything. Drug cartels synthesize synthetic fentanyl quickly in makeshift labs—metal tubs out in the wilderness with shovels mixing. By the time it reaches the consumer, it might look real but is very dangerous. Fentanyl is so potent that an exceedingly small amount, on the order of a grain of sand or the tip of a pencil, can be lethal. It's been approved for pain relief for over 50 years in the United States and used effectively and safely for general anesthesia, conscious sedation, and end-of-life care for cancer patients. But when fentanyl is used illicitly, the quantity involved is vastly different.

Whether it's pain pills like oxycodone or heroin or fentanyl, it can cause addiction. The shorter-acting, higher-potency drugs are more addictive because the body gets that reward very quickly, then it wears off quickly, leaving the user wanting more. Initially, it was fun, rebellious. Then it became something done every day, regularly. It got harder, stronger, faster, and it felt like something needed, even though it was becoming bigger than me and uncontrollable. Ignoring those feelings and justifying the actions continued until the real consequences surfaced.

We have two boys, Miles, our older son, and Cal, our younger son. Cal was very involved in theater, taught swim lessons, was very social, and had lots of friends. He lived large, and part of living large was his emotions. During the COVID epidemic, things got a little out of control. We all leaned in together as a family and got to a pretty good place before he went off to the University of Hawaii. He had a good first semester. When he came home for the holiday break in December, we were looking forward to catching up. On Monday morning, we found him unresponsive. We called 911 and did CPR. Jennifer found a small bag with a couple of blue pills next to him. She showed them to the sheriff's deputy, who said they looked like oxycodone but were most likely fentanyl. He added, "If you're the praying type, you should start praying." Cal was taken to the hospital, but we couldn't bring him home. We found in Cal's browsing history that the day before he bought the pill, he had asked online what a safe dose for his weight was and how it would interact with his anxiety medicine. He definitely did not have a dependency or substance use disorder, which I mention not to make Cal seem better or his death matter more, but to emphasize that there may not be signs and that you don't have to be down the road of dependency or addiction to suffer a fate like Cal's in the age of fentanyl.

This generation is very familiar with prescription meds. Born in the late '90s or early 2000s, they likely had classmates taking medication for learning differences, anxiety, sports injuries, etc. Pills are everywhere in movies, pop culture, and commercials—a pill for every ill. The counterfeit pills on the market today are very difficult to distinguish from real prescription pills. They're made in pill presses with dyes and stamps that produce pills looking like real Xanax or Percocet. The most commonly counterfeited pill is stamped with an "M" on one side and "30" on the other. They're cheap to make, costing cents, and sold for $10, $15, or $20, made for 50 cents but potentially lethal. The US Drug Enforcement Agency tells us that 60% of counterfeit pills contain potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. Many of the pills people encounter on social media or through a dealer are not what they think. They haven't been prescribed by a doctor or dispensed by a pharmacy; they're fake and deadly.

We lost 108,000 people to overdose last year, and that's just fatalities. There are many nonfatal overdoses too. Years ago, if someone was using heroin, it would likely be far into their use before they could overdose. Now, you can overdose with your first pill. The drug landscape now is less like a pathway and more like a minefield. Your first, second, or third step could be your last because you don't know what's in those substances.

Jules was about to enter her junior year. She didn't make it; she passed away a few months before her 16th birthday. Instead of a sweet 16, I had to have a birthday vigil for my daughter. They're so impressionable. We live in a social media world, and this horrific event with my daughter showed me how prevalent and easily accessible these things can become through social media. I thought I was checking all bases by having conversations with my children, but my daughter was still persuaded.

I was 15 years old and curious about substances, but I didn't learn about them through formal sources. I experimented without guidance, faced challenges and consequences, and when I recovered, I realized many other teens were in the same situation—without information and guidance. For effective drug education, adults need education too. Parents need to understand the best approach to their teens is from curiosity and understanding, creating a safe space for them.