Today is a difficult day for my Family. Kaylabug (as many of us called her) shares her birthday with my Dad (her grandfather). Here is our family's story which I hope you read and share with young people in your lives. We tell the story in the hope of saving a life ...
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, it would only take two to three milligrams of fentanyl to induce respiratory depression, arrest and possibly death. When visually compared, two to three milligrams of fentanyl is about the same as five to seven individual grains of table salt.
By MIKE RYAN |
September 21, 2023 at 6:45 a.m.
There was panic in my sister’s voice on the phone. Her daughter, my goddaughter, was found unresponsive. I had always been the problem solver. I would soon find out how humbled and useless one can feel in these moments.
I was at their house in a matter of minutes. My niece, who was funny, employed, smart, an integral part of a loving stable family and engaged in all family activities, had already been sent by ambulance to the hospital. We had little information other than she may have taken a pill. However, when I heard the physical description of how she was found, as if death was instantaneous and unexpected, I had a tortured guess of what may have happened. I didn’t share my fears at the time because I begged to be wrong, or that there would be a miracle.
Instead, the next image in my memory was when I saw, over the right shoulder of an officer who was approaching me, my sister collapsing to the ground in the middle of the driveway, her husband trying in vain to catch her, an officer standing over her in solemn silence. The soundwave of her pain barreled toward me ahead of the approaching officer. All he had to do was look in my eyes to confirm our family’s nightmare — a nightmare playing out all over our region, state and nation.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. While in the legally manufactured form it has a legitimate and limited medical use for severe or chronic pain, the illegal manufacture and importation of fentanyl is causing a human catastrophe in ways we have never seen before.es Off According to the CDC, in 2021, nearly 71,000 drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids (other than methadone) occurred in the United States. This was an increase of 22% over 2020, double the number from 2019 and 23 times as many as 2013.
Illegal drug makers have been mixing cheap, illegally manufactured fentanyl with illicit drugs such as MDMA to accentuate the high or using fentanyl in counterfeit prescription drugs, such as oxycontin and Xanax. Because fentanyl is so strong, it takes very little to be lethal. When illegally manufactured fentanyl is mixed with narcotics or pressed into counterfeit prescription pills, as we found out, the result is deadly. The Drug Enforcement Administration recently found that six out of 10 fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
Given the ever-increasing level of overdoses, the move toward making over-the-counter naloxone, or Narcan, available is of some theoretical help. Naloxone quickly reverses an overdose and can save lives, but to be effective, it must be administered nearly immediately upon discovering the deadly effects of fentanyl. That’s no solution for families in which no one expected an overdose from a common, albeit illicit, counterfeit prescription pill.
Florida, like many states, has significantly increased penalties for possession and distribution of fentanyl. While welcomed, this has not stemmed the rising tide of death. Proving who distributed, much less who manufactured, the actual pill that killed a loved one can be daunting for well-intentioned investigators and prosecutors overwhelmed by the number of overdose deaths. Sadly, penalties and prosecutions will not reverse the trend or even serve as a meaningful deterrence for the illegal market.
There is a frightening risk of indifference. Just another overdose. But each fentanyl victim is a real person, and many are not addicts. With fentanyl, a child or loved one who was otherwise well-adjusted but bought a counterfeit pill or had one given to them by a friend is at just as much risk as those who had been in the throes of severe addiction. The bar for high-risk behavior has been lowered dramatically. Taking a prescription pill that looks just like a common medication, but is obtained illegally, is now like playing Russian roulette.
In the aftermath of an overdose, there’s loss, pain and lots of regrets and questions. Families know someone made these contaminated or counterfeit prescription pills, and someone gave those drugs to their loved one. There is a compounding pain that soon comes from the lack of any justice, even partial. We know our story is no different than what is being experienced across our county, state and nation as the catastrophe wrought by fentanyl continues every day to snatch souls and destroy lives.
As certain as I take my next breath, there will be many more tragic and unnecessary deaths as fentanyl grips more families, evading judgmental descriptions of socio-economics, education and prior addictions. For families impacted like mine, we see no light at the end of the tunnel.
So, we tell her story, our story, in the hope that the warning alarm is heard. Talk to your children, your friends, your loved ones. Maybe our loss will make a difference, even if the pain never goes away.