The fentanyl crisis has spread all across the United States leading to overdose. Image credits: CBS News
The fentanyl crisis has spread all across the United States, from 2020-2021 there were 100,000 overdose cases and has had a significant impact of nine overdoses in LAUSD schools as of August 2022.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Overdose can occur with two milligrams depending on the person’s body size, in comparison, two milligrams can be as little as a mosquito.
An article published by Rolling Stone talks about a mother and her son who overdosed on a Percocet pill out of the blue.
“My son is not a drug user, she insisted.” “I had never heard in my life heard of a fake Percocet that looked legit from a pharmacy,” “until my son took one and it killed him,” said Racheal Bowman.
Racheal Bowman is the mother of Matthew Disney. On a Friday afternoon, 20-year-old Matthew suddenly became unreachable, causing Bowman, his little sisters, and his girlfriend to worry.
Disney was never the type of child that Bowman had to worry about, he was well-behaved and supported his mother. He was passionate and happy about baseball, and he was in the military. Disney was later found deceased in a friend’s room on base. All due to a fake Percocet which they thought was from a pharmacy.
Fentanyl is very dangerous and can be very easily laced with other drugs and pills. Hence the candy boxes containing fentanyl were found at LAX in October 2022. Fentanyl and drug overdose should be taken seriously and spoken of more often to spread awareness to those who don’t know the forms in which fentanyl comes in. One pill can change so many people’s lives, not just the consumers.
“Come here, I need you to listen to this… it’s not funny, this is a serious topic and you need to listen to it. I want you to be aware of these topics and I don’t want you to be doing things that you aren’t supposed to,” said a mother to a student at Huntington Park High School.
This mother said this to her daughter in regard to the overdose and fentanyl crisis going on in LAUSD schools and LA county areas.
This was brought to the student’s attention over phone calls made by the LAUSD board and news stories on TV while eating dinner.
Without her mother bringing this to her attention, she probably would have chosen to ignore the talk about fentanyl and drug overdose just like many other students, and could possibly end up in a situation in which they wished they had been educated on the dangers of overdose and fentanyl.
“In Seattle Public Schools, where teen overdose deaths have risen 500% over the past five years, all 7th and 9th graders receive mandatory drug prevention education, including opioid-specific information.” As stated in K-12 Dive’s article on Fighting Fentanyl: Schools tackle the opioid crisis head-on.
Written by Staff Writer, Valeria Alejandre