Category: Fentanyl
Havelock woman extradited from Pennsylvania on death by distribution charge
Read the original article on the WNCT News9 website.
CARTERET COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) — Detectives with the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office extradited a woman from Pittsburgh, Pa. in connection to a drug overdose death.
Aryanna Marquise Carter, 29, of Havelock, was charged in connection to the death of Tyler Lee Hall, 22, of Newport, in April of 2021.
Hall died from methamphetamine and fentanyl toxicity. Carter was arrested May 5, 2024 in Pennsylvania on an unrelated weapon charge.
Carter is charged with selling and delivering a schedule II controlled substance and felony death by distribution. Carter was jailed in the Carteret County Detention Center under a $470,000 bond.
After Years of Meetings, Davidson County’s $25 Million Opioid Settlement committee pushes to finally hire coordinator
Read the original article on DavidsonLocal.com.
The Davidson County Opioid Settlement Fund Committee is looking at hiring a coordinator to oversee how to use the $12 million the county will have in opioid settlement funds.
Currently Davidson County has been paid $6.9 million in opioid settlement funds and is slated to receive another $1.9 million in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
These settlement funds are part of the $56 billion North Carolina received from the national opioid settlement lawsuit in 2021. Davidson County is slated to receive $23.4 million over the next 13 years.
On Monday, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced North Carolina will receive $145 million in a settlement with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sacker family. Davidson County is slated to receive an additional $2.3 million in funding from this recent settlement. Most of these funds will be distributed in the next three years according to the NC Department of Justice.
This would bring the Davidson County Opioid Settlement fund to approximately $12 million, which has mostly not been used. Last year, the county approved $1.2 million from opioid settlement funds toward the Medically Assisted Treatment program at the Davidson County Jail.
During the meeting on Tuesday, several committee members vented frustration on the lack of progress, stating they have met for several years and have yet to come up with a clear plan on how to spend these funds.
Lillian Koontz, director of the Davidson County Health Department, said she proposed the idea of hiring a coordinator for the opioid settlement funds over a year ago.
“These were the exact things we talked about and here we are a year later,” said Koontz. “We have not spent any money; we have not done any coordination… I strongly support using some of the opioid funds to identify a human being to do the research for us, to say how much money we have, to vet the programs and then bring solid ideas to us. As it is now, we just come into a meeting, hear some ideas and then we don’t meet again for several months and we are not doing anything.”
The committee members voted to send their recommendations to hire a coordinator/director to oversee the county opioid settlement funds to the county commissioners for approval during their meeting on June 23. If approved, the county manager would work with the county human resource director to create a job description and begin the hiring process.
Committee member Billy West, executive director of Daymark Recovery Services, said the committee should also consider granting smaller requests, under $10,000, to community partners until the new coordinator can be hired.
“It could be three or four months before that person actually gets (here),” said West. “In the meantime, there are other things that can be done so we are not viewed as a bunch of people sitting around with $12 million and won’t even spend $20,000 of it on local things.”
Mike Loomis, founder of Race Against Drugs, currently has a request for approximately $6,000 in funding from the Davidson County Opioid Settlement Committee and has not had any response from the group, or had his request sent to the county commissioners.
He is currently paying for educational materials, like several billboards to raise awareness of the impact of fentanyl overdoses, out of his own pocket. He purchases doses of Naloxone and distributes them in the community. Race Against Drugs also has an awareness event at Breeden Insurance Amphitheater in Lexington on Aug. 9.
Loomis said he is disappointed in the progress of the opioid committee, especially when it comes to supporting those in the community who are “boots on the ground” in battling opioid addiction.
“They are just waiting for another life to be lost,” said Loomis. “I have been doing this by myself for so long and I am up against the stigma of people struggling with addiction. I am disappointed, but I will keep doing what I do.”
County commissioner Steve Shell said the opioid committee can already bring any spending request for use of settlement funds for approval by the county commissioners.
The committee also discussed other options available to combat opioid addiction, including Naloxone (Narcan) vending machines, which would be available to citizens after hours. Several members showed hesitation on placing these machines in the community but voted to create a list of community partners which are already providing Naloxone.
The providers list would be available on the United Way 211 system. NC 211 is an information and referral service that connects people with local resources 24-hours a day.
Major Billy Louya, who oversees operations at the Davidson County Detention Center, gave an update on MAT program. He said since Jan. 1, there have been 27 participants in the program, which equals about 1% of inmates booked into the jail.
The MAT program uses once a month medication administered at the jail, instead of transporting inmates to local treatment clinics weekly and includes a peer support program after the inmate is released from detention.
The committee also discussed finding additional community partners to provide more post incarceration peer support.
The Davidson County Opioid Settlement Fund Committee meets quarterly and includes representatives from organizations impacted by opioid addiction, including the health department, law enforcement, family services, emergency services, county government, elected officials and community partners involved in prevention and recovery.
Mom honors son’s memory by battling fentanyl crisis in North Carolina
Read the original article and watch the video on the WCNC New website.
Debbie Dalton’s advocacy continues as officials sound the alarm on the crisis.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Union County District Attorney Trey Robison is sounding the alarm about fentanyl and opioids, something he says remains a public health and safety issue as leaders across the Tar Heel State continue seeking solutions.
According to the State Bureau of Investigation, North Carolina averages nine deaths from fentanyl overdoses every day. Community leaders say it’s the number one issue impacting their community.
That’s a number that’s too high for Debbie Dalton.
Dalton lost her son, Hunter, to fentanyl in 2016. She’s been sharing her son’s story for the past eight years. In almost every room in Dalton’s home, reminders and memories are seen throughout. She told WCNC Charlotte that Hunter was a UNC Charlotte graduate who had bright dreams.
“This is Hunter’s room — he loved penguins, so we collect penguins everywhere we go,” Dalton said.
The Monday after Thanksgiving in 2016, Dalton learned she would never see her son again. Fentanyl, which he used as a recreational drug, turned deadly.
“I was bracing for ‘Hunter’s been in an accident’. I never could have fathomed the words that Hunter had overdosed. I just remember screaming,” Dalton said.
Dalton started her own organization, the Hunter Dalton HD Life Foundation, to warn others about the dangers of recreational drug use.
“Young people today, to make the decision to try drugs, there really is one of two things that are going to happen: they’re going to end up with a life of addiction or they’re going to die,” Dalton said.
“You can’t talk about those things without also talking about mental health; they are intertwined,” said Union County District Attorney Trey Robison, who’s advocating for more robust mental health and drug addiction treatment programs and places people can go when they need help.
“We’re working on the supply side of the opioid crisis, but the demand side has to be addressed as well. We’re not going to arrest and incarcerate people out of the opioid crisis, that’s not going to happen,” he added.
In the meantime, Dalton holds onto the bucket list her son created. She keeps it in his room as a reminder of why she’s advocating for families impacted by drug addiction to receive support.
“He has on his bucket list to save someone’s life, and what 23-year-old thinks of that?” she said. “We know that’s what he’s doing, his story is saving lives.”
Dalton has been recognized by Governor Josh Stein for the work she’s doing. Next month, she will meet with North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson to talk about more ways to combat the opioid and fentanyl crisis.
Contact Siobhan Riley at sriley@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook and X.
Arrest Made in Fatal Overdose Case
New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office: Death by Distribution
Statesville Resident Charged with Death by Distribution
Alleged attempted fentanyl drugging shuts down Southern Colorado music festival
Read the original article on the KRDO website.
LAS ANIMAS COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) – The Apogaea festival was set to be held June 4-8, but it was cut short due to alleged non-consensual drugging involving fentanyl. On Sunday, the Apogaea Board of Directors released a statement to clarify the weekend’s events.
The festival is known as a Colorado Burning Man regional event held near Trinidad, just north of New Mexico. What was expected to be a weekend full of art and music was quickly shut down.
On Thursday afternoon, event organizers say two festival goers came to a department tent, saying they had been gifted a substance that they tested positive for fentanyl. They say a volunteer notified the Apogaea Incident Command System (ICS), which in turn alerted the County emergency coordinator. Apogaea says they never had custody of the substance and did not test it.
The next morning, on Friday, organizers say a participant noticed an undissolved gelcap in their clear water bottle. This tested positive for fentanyl via two strip tests. Organizers say that since the bottle had been on volunteer premises, there was immediate concern that somebody might be targeting the volunteers. Apogaea says they tested the gelcap again with multiple reagent tests, which resulted in confirming the presence of multiple substances.
Field test methodologies are not 100% accurate, and they can result in false positives, shared the Apogaea board. With the presence of the gelcap reagent tests and the multiple positive fentanyl results, Apogaea says their teams had a high confidence that this was a situation of non-consensual drugging.
Organizers say that as a precaution, community water in the nearby Center Camp Café and Ranger Station was dumped. The board says they updated the County and worked with the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office (LACSO) to come to the decision to close the event.
The Sheriff’s Office tells KRDO13 it was aware of the incident, however, it was not contacted by anyone to initiate a formal investigation of the alleged incident, nor have any suspects been identified.
KRDO13 spoke with Joe Richards, the Las Animas County Emergency Manager, who was in contact with the event organizers. Richards says the incident commander contacted him initially on Thursday to make him aware that two people at the festival had tested for and found fentanyl in a substance someone had given to them.
He says that after they had another instance with someone finding a capsule in their water the next day, which tested positive for fentanyl, that’s when they became more concerned and contacted him.
Richards tells KRDO13 the incident commander said they’d like to shut the event down to prevent any further risks, and he said it’s up to you, but I support it wholeheartedly.
So he says, as a group, they came to the conclusion to shut down the event, and although some are upset, he’s grateful there were no serious injuries. Richards says the incident commanders were proactive and took the right steps to handle the incident.
Richards says with 1,400-1,500 people at the event, the possibility of someone non-consensually drugging others was highly concerning, especially with how deadly fentanyl is. He says there were multiple EMTs at the festival, along with a local fire department on scene for nearly the entire event.
Apogaea says that to their knowledge, no one was dosed or harmed physically at the event, and there were zero medical transports from the site during the event.
Why are synthetic opioids so dangerous? An ER doc explains
Read the original article on CNN.com.
The United States is facing an alarming increase in overdose deaths among young people due to synthetic opioids.
The rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, which include fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, increased more than 20-fold between 2013 and 2022, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overdoses and drug poisonings are now the third leading cause of death in people under age 20, behind firearms and motor vehicle crashes.
The overdose death counts among US youth ages 15 to 24 rose from 4,652 to 6,723 between 2018 and 2022, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics. (A slight decrease occurred between 2021 and 2022.)
The largest increase was seen in deaths involving only synthetic opioids: Since 2020, fatal overdoses involving only these substances were higher than overdoses in which multiple substances were implicated. Overdose rates were nearly 2.5 times higher among male youths compared with female youths and more than two times higher among those ages 20 to 24 compared with those ages 15 to 19.
As a parent, I wanted to know more about synthetic opioids and their uses. Why are they so dangerous, and how are overdoses treated? How can people tell if the drugs they are taking contain synthetic opioids? Crucially, what can parents and other family members do to help reduce the risk of overdose?
The article continues on CNN.com or download the article PDF below.
Two arrested in connection with Riley Goolishian’s fentanyl death in Beaufort
Beaufort, NC — Two men are now behind bars in connection with the death of a 25-year-old woman following a joint investigation, according to the Beaufort Police Department.
Officials say 26-year-old Ladavion Vontrell Manning of Morrisville and 24-year-old Kevin Crishawn Milliken of Apex are facing second-degree murder, death by distribution and the sale and delivery of Schedule II controlled substances.
Manning was taken into custody at his Morrisville home on May 2, 2025 and was also charged with sale and delivery of fentanyl. He remains jailed at the Carteret County Detention Center under a $750,000 bond.
On Tuesday, June 3 officials arrested Milliken in Chatham County. He also faces separate charges in Chatham County, including felony possession of cocaine, maintaining a vehicle or dwelling, possession of drug paraphernalia and simple possession of a schedule IV-controlled substance. Milliken remains in jail in Chatham County under a $1 million bond and will be transported to Carteret County for trial proceedings.
These arrests come after an investigation into the death of Riley Goolishian, who was found in her Beaufort home back on May 26 of 2024 unresponsive. Authorities say she died a day later at Carteret Health Care in Morehead City. It was confirmed her cause of death was fentanyl and cocaine toxicity through autopsy and toxicology findings.
The joint investigation determined that both Manning and Milliken sold fentanyl and cocaine to Goolishian the day prior to her being found unresponsive.
The investigating agencies include the Beaufort Police Department, Carteret County Sheriff’s Office and the NC SBI.
Beaufort Police Chief Paul Burdette stated, “This case represents a coordinated effort by multiple law enforcement agencies to bring justice in the face of a heartbreaking loss. We remain committed to pursuing those who distribute dangerous and illegal substances in our communities.”