ONSLOW COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) – A woman is accused by deputies of providing the drugs that led to the death of a man earlier this year here in the east.
The Onslow County Sheriff’s Office said that Destiny Smith, 23, of Newport, was arrested November 2nd and charged with death by distribution of controlled substances.
It was back on January 13th that deputies responded to a home on Turtle Cove Boulevard in Hubert and found 46-year-old James Strickland dead.
Investigators said it was revealed that Smith provided the victim with drugs that tested positive for Fentanyl.
Officials said an autopsy revealed that Strickland died from fentanyl and ethanol toxicity.
Smith is being held in the Onslow County Detention Center under a $100,000 secured bond.
After more than 4,000 people in North Carolina died last year from fentanyl, a Chapel Hill company has a plan to cut down on deadly overdoses.
A Chapel Hill company is developing an injectable drug to cut down on deadly overdoses after more than 4,000 people in North Carolina died last year from fentanyl.
Fentanyl is the number one killer of Americans ages 18 to 45, with opioids producing the worst drug crisis in the history of the United States.
Chapel Hill-based Cessation Therapeutics says its monoclonal antibody therapy, called CSX-1004, can block the dangerous effects of fentanyl.
“Fentanyl can get to the brain really quickly,” said Andy Barrett, chief scientific officer for Cessation Therapeutics. “And the brain is where it produces its pleasurable effects and its dangerous respiratory depression.”
Without any intervention, fentanyl can enter the bloodstream and travel easily to the brain – but the monoclonal antibody can bind to fentanyl in the blood and prevent it from crossing that blood brain barrier.
“It would block all of the effects of fentanyl for at least a month,” Barrett said.
Border Patrol agents seized enough fentanyl in 2023 alone to kill every American citizen as the country grapples with the consequences of President Joe Biden’s open border policies.
Now, the White House is urging schools to stock up on Narcan amid a surging number of fentanyl deaths among American children.
In a letter addressed to U.S. school officials, President Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urged administrators to begin keeping naloxone on hand and to train teachers on how to administer the drug if a student starts overdosing on or is poisoned by fentanyl.
In the midst of this fentanyl overdose epidemic, it is important to focus on measures to prevent youth drug use and ensure that every school has naloxone and has prepared its students and faculty to use it. Studies show that naloxone access can reduce overdose death rates, that its availability does not lead to increases in youth drug use, and that it causes no harm if used on a person who is not overdosing on opioids. It is important to note that individuals should not be afraid to administer naloxone, as most states have Good Samaritan Laws protecting bystanders who aid at the scene of an overdose. Our schools are on the frontlines of this epidemic, but our teachers and students can be equipped with tools to save lives.
The fentanyl crisis has taken the lives of more than 13,000 North Carolinians in recent years and it’s currently killing eight North Carolinians a day. The rise in overdose deaths is driven by illegally manufactured fentanyl.
The group Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina recently joined NC Newsline for an extended conversation, in which founder Barb Walsh shared her family’s story, described the organization she leads, and shared some of the policy changes the group is seeking from state leaders.
Editor’s note: This is a rebroadcast of an interview NC Newsline originally aired August 20, 2023.
Allen Michael “Mikey” Boyd had a “heart of gold” and loved interacting with people with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities. He was a “beautiful soul with a free spirit” who loved his younger brothers, spending time with friends and skateboarding, his mother, Allena Hale, shares with groups of people she meets at events that raise awareness about the dangers of illicit fentanyl use.
Hale, of Pamlico Beach, lost Boyd to fentanyl poisoning on March 31, 2022 when he was just 22 years old.
Through her work, she hopes to educate people and comfort grieving families who have similar stories of young family members that were kind, smart and funny but met untimely deaths.
What is Fentanyl?
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl is used by medical professionals to treat patients with severe pain, and is used to treat patients with chronic pain who are “physically more tolerant to other opioids.”
When fentanyl is produced illegally, it is dropped on blotter paper, smoked, snorted/sniffed or made into pills that look similar to other opioids, per the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers held a town hall with several senior staffers Monday night to address concerns about the detention center, crime in the county and staffing concerns in the department.
Fentanyl took center stage, though.
“That was the day our whole world came crashing down … Since then, it’s been my mission to bring attention and awareness to fentanyl,” said Debbie Peeden, a grandmother who lost her granddaughter to fentanyl poisoning two years ago.
On March 9, 2023, a freshman from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill overdosed on fentanyl outside a Duke University dorm.
She died in a hospital two days later, surrounded by family and friends, according to her obituary.
Very few people knew about her death, until a Duke student journalist started investigating, learning that 19-year-old Grace Burton wasn’t the only UNC student or alum to recently die from fentanyl poisoning.
She wasn’t even the only one to lose her life to an overdose that week. Now federal agents say the same person supplied the drugs to both students.
Duke student and journalist Charlotte Kramon heard about Burton’s on-campus death and figured more information would come out publicly.
But, she says, “There was no announcement; there were very few people outside of some of those who were close to the situation that knew.”
Kramon started looking into the death and charges related to it, publishing her findings along with co-author Michael Hewlett in the online magazine The Assembly.
The family of a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill freshman student who died after overdosing on fentanyl-laced cocaine on the campus of Duke University is seeking some justice for their daughter.
So far, no one has been charged in the death of Elizabeth Grace Burton, or Gracie as her family called her. She was 19 years old.
Court documents reveal Burton became “unsteady” and “wobbly on her feet” about an hour after meeting with a suspected drug dealer on March 9 outside a Duke student’s dorm. The former Duke student is Patrick Rowland, who pleaded guilty to a drug distribution charge.
An autopsy revealed Burton died two days after investigators said she met up with Rowland after a party and contacted him to buy cocaine.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, three students stand behind a card table covered in naloxone injection kits. When a curious student leans in and asks what the kits are for, Caroline Clodfelter, one of the co-founders of the student group running the table, explains: “It will reverse an opioid overdose. … So let’s say you’re going out to a frat — stick it in your pocket. It’s easy to just have on you.”
Nearly 600 miles away, at the State University of New York’s Delhi campus, Rebecca Harrington, who works in student affairs, has also been tabling to prevent fentanyl overdoses. Her table, though, is full of colorful cups, a water jug and candies in zip-close bags — tools for her demonstration on how to use a fentanyl test strip. These test strips allow students to see whether a pill has been laced with the deadly synthetic opioid.
Test strips and naloxone are becoming more and more common on college campuses, and at least one health department has recommended they be added to school packing lists. For students who didn’t bring their own, many campuses are handing them out at welcome fairs, orientation events or campus health centers.
As more teens overdose on fentanyl, schools face a drug crisis unlike any other Fentanyl was involved in the vast majority of teen overdose deaths in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly a quarter of those deaths involved counterfeit pills that weren’t prescribed by a doctor. And the problem has been following teens onto college campuses.
Students may think they’re taking pills like oxycodone, Xanax or Vicodin. Instead, those pills often have fentanyl in them, resulting in overdoses on campuses across the U.S., from Ohio to Colorado to Oregon. At UNC-Chapel Hill, three students died from fentanyl poisoning in just the last two years.
A Carolina freshman was found unconscious in a Duke University dorm room in March and died two days later of a drug overdose. Neither university said anything publicly about her death until contacted by The Assembly.
Paramedics rushed into a residence hall on Duke University’s Kilgo quad at about 6:30 a.m. on March 9 and climbed to the third floor of the old stone building around the corner from Duke Chapel. In room 309, they found a pale, chilled body in a puffy jacket, on her back in a twin bed and glistening in a pool of sweat.
The young woman was barely breathing, according to the 911 call log and an investigative report. A trash can sat next to the bed.
After almost an hour of treatment for cardiac arrest, an ambulance took Elizabeth Grace Burton, a business student from Charlotte and member of Zeta Tau Alpha at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to the Duke University Hospital. Two days later, she was pronounced dead. Burton was 19.
A state autopsy says she died of cardiac arrest from a toxic mix of cocaine and alcohol. A private autopsy also found fentanyl and GHB, a depressant that can give feelings of euphoria.
Until contacted by The Assembly, Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill said nothing publicly about the death. Duke said it deferred to UNC because Burton was a student there, and UNC said it considers the family’s wishes when deciding to release a statement.
No one has been charged with Burton’s death. But Burton’s companion that night, former Duke student Patrick Rowland, has pleaded guilty to using a cell phone to facilitate the distribution of cocaine and marijuana. Rowland, 22, is scheduled to appear in federal court on October 18 for a status hearing and will be sentenced in December.
Rowland could face a civil suit from Burton’s family. He is no longer at Duke. Duke officials won’t say whether he was expelled or left voluntarily.
