In part three of a series, Bob Woodruff watches a drug seizure at the U.S.-Mexico border, speaks with a convicted drug dealer and one sheriff who is fighting to keep people like him off the streets.
Category: Breaking News
Fentanyl killed their son. Now they’re begging parents to understand the dangers
CNN —

It was every parent’s worst nightmare.
Two days after Christmas 2020, Chris Didier went into his son Zach’s bedroom in their home near Sacramento. The accomplished student, school theater actor and athlete was unresponsive at his desk – his head lying on his arm.
“I could feel before I even touched him that something was horribly wrong,” said Chris.
Read the full story and watch the video on CNN.com
Hidden Fentanyl Is Driving a Fatal New Phase in US Opioid Epidemic

Bloomberg has posted an article which has a detailed analysis of the increase of fentanyl related deaths over the past decade. The article contains a number of dynamic graphics and should be viewed on the Bloomberg web site. The graphic above is just one of the many graphics included in the article.
A major drugmaker plans to sell overdose-reversal nasal spray Narcan over the counter

Drug maker Emergent BioSolutions is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell Narcan over the counter, without need for a prescription.
The medication, an easy-to-use nasal spray version of the drug naloxone, has a strong track record reversing deadly opioid overdoses, which have soared in recent years largely because of the spread of fentanyl.
Read the full article on the NPR web site.
FVNNC is officially a non-profit!
The Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina has officially been recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Status has been assigned retroactively to August 29, 2022. All dontations, including past donations, are now considered tax deductable.
DEA Family Summit Nov 2022
Fayetteville man charged after Harnett County man dies of drug overdose
A Harnett County man who died of a drug overdose has led to a Fayetteville man’s arrest.

On Sunday, first responders found a 53-year-old man unresponsive at a residence on Roger Curtis Lane in Spring Lake.
A Harnett County Sheriff’s Office investigation revealed the man had purchased narcotics from Lamont McKoy Jr., a 31-year-old from Fayetteville.
Read the full article and watch the video on the WRAL News web site.
FVNNC buttons now available
Conversation starter buttons! 40 DESIGNS! These eye catching buttons create awareness & reduce stigma about illicit fentanyl. Mix & match! Get one for every member of the family. Proceeds from button donations will fund 2023 NC Family Summit and on-going Fentanyl Victims Network of NC grassroots programs.

One button for $10 donation, 5 buttons for $35 donation, 10 buttons for $50 donations. One sticker included with each button or received 10 stickers for a $7 donation.
Visit the FVNNC Shop for more information.
More teenagers dying from fentanyl. ‘It has a hold on me, and I don’t know why’

The summer before 14-year-old Alexander Neville would have entered high school, he sat both of his parents down at the kitchen table in their Aliso Viejo home and told them he’d been taking Oxycontin pills he bought on Snapchat.
He had self-medicated with pot in the past, but this was different.
“It has a hold on me, and I don’t know why,” he told them in 2020.
Alexander’s mother, Amy Neville, said they called a treatment program the next day and were waiting to hear back on rehab facilities. Alexander got a haircut, went to lunch with his dad and said goodnight to his parents before going up to his bedroom at the end of the day.
Read the full article on the LA Times web site.
As fentanyl drives overdose deaths, mistaken beliefs persist
Lillianna Alfaro was a recent high school graduate raising a toddler and considering joining the Army when she and a friend bought what they thought was the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in December 2020.
The pills were fake and contained fentanyl, an opioid that can be 50 times as powerful as the same amount of heroin. It killed them both.
“Two years ago, I knew nothing about this,” said Holly Groelle, the mother of 19-year-old Alfaro, who lived in Appleton, Wisconsin. “I felt bad because it was something I could not have warned her about, because I didn’t know.”
Read the full article on the AP web site.

