Senators move to increase punishments as fentanyl (overdoses) poisonings rise
Category: Media Coverage
CBS17 Coverage of Family Summit
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Dozens of families from across North Carolina and beyond were together in Raleigh on Saturday, remembering loved ones who died from fentanyl poisoning.
“Matthew was my first grandchild, my first grandson, and I always called him my uno because he was my number one,” one woman said to a group at the Family Summit on Illicit Fentanyl Fatalities in North Carolina.
Family members said the names of victims and their forever ages.
“Jesse’s forever age is 26,” one mom said of a son she lost to fentanyl poisoning.
Families were crying together, hugging each other and remembering loved ones.
Read the article and watch the news segment on the CBS17 web site.
WRAL TV5 Coverage of Family Summit
RALEIGH, N.C. — More than 40 families came together Saturday at the Public Safety and Justice Conference at NC State University.
Eight North Carolinians die each day from fentanyl poisoning, and over 13,376 died from fentanyl from 2013 to November 2022.
Barb Walsh, founder and executive director of the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, lost her daughter 24-year-old daughter, Sophia, to fentanyl poisoning. Now she’s trying to connect others who’ve lost loved ones to fentanyl.
“Other people who lost a child to fentanyl, or loved one, they shouldn’t stand alone,” Walsh said. “I felt like we would all be stronger if we stood together.”
Read the article and watch the video on the WRAL Tv5 web site.
Stein to keynote summit on fentanyl as legislature considers related bills
Attorney General Josh Stein will be the keynote speaker at a “Family Summit on Illicit Fentanyl Fatalities in North Carolina” this Saturday.
Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid used to manage pain that has become popular in the illicit drug market, is a scourge in North Carolina and across the country, responsible for more than 13,000 deaths in the Old North State over the past nine years.
The gathering is a private event. Stein, who is running for governor, will speak alongside people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl overdoses, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration official and other law enforcement officials. Stein goes on at 12:40, but the event runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the McKimmon Conference Center in Raleigh.
Stein recently asked the legislature for money so he could create a Fentanyl Control Unit. The special group within the North Carolina Department of Justice’s Special Prosecutions and Law Enforcement Section would help local prosecutors handle big trafficking, wiretap and overdose cases. Special prosecutors with the state’s Department of Justice have previously prosecuted drug traffickers, distributors and dealers.
“Fentanyl is deadly and highly addictive,” Stein said in a statement. “Even as we interdict more fentanyl at the border than ever before, too many North Carolinians overdose from fentanyl and are dying. We must hold those who peddle this poison accountable and take them off our streets. I look forward to working with leaders in the legislature to strengthen our state’s ability to prosecute these cases and save lives.”
More than 70,000 Americans died of a fentanyl overdose in 2021.
Stein is the only state official listed on the summit’s agenda — other speakers include Harnett County Sheriff Wayne Coats and Harnett and Lee County District Attorney Suzanne Matthews — but addressing fentanyl overdoses has become a bipartisan affair as the number of people die from overdoses continues to increase each year. The legislature is considering a number of bills that would increase prison sentences and fines for people who traffic fentanyl and broaden the state’s “death by distribution” law, which allows people who deal drugs to be charged with second-degree murder if the drugs they sold resulted in a person’s death.
Progressives in states like New Jersey have expressed concern that more punitive drug laws would mean more people struggling with addiction would end up in jail. Others have warned enacting harsher punishments for fentanyl could be the next phase of the War on Drugs, undermining efforts to reform the criminal justice system.
According to a press release for the event, the summit’s goals are to support victims’ families, investigate and prosecute fentanyl dealers and suppliers, develop a training model for prosecutors to uniformly prosecute fentanyl homicides using laws already on the books. They will also advocate for putting Narcan in every school in the state and equipping all police with Naloxone, which quickly reverses overdoses.
Read the original article on the NC Policy Watch web site.
Grandmother becomes an advocate after losing granddaughter to fentanyl overdose
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Debbie Peeden is a grandmother, mother and now activist.
What You Need To Know
- Debbie Peeden’s granddaughter Ashley died from fentanyl in 2021
- A report from the DEA shows that 6 out of 10 fentanyl-laced prescription pills contain a lethal dose of the drug
- In 2021, according to the CDC, almost 108,000 Americans died from drug poisoning
Peeden said her granddaughter Ashley was hanging out with a friend in 2021 when she died.
“So turns out the cocaine that she thought she had was mainly fentanyl, and she had enough fentanyl all in her system from the toxicology report to have killed several people,” Peeden said.
This is becoming common with young adults. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential rose from 547 in 1999 to 23,837 in 2020 and continued to increase to 32,537 deaths in 2021.
Peeden says she will never be the same since the loss of Ashley. She and her husband had custody of her when she was just 12 months old and raised her.
Grandmother applauds schools for bringing awareness to dangers of fentanyl
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and 50 times deadlier than heroin.
With substance abuse a growing issue in high schools, the PTSA at Northern Guilford is planning a town hall to draw attention to the problem.
Debbie Peeden lost her granddaughter, Ashley, less than 2 years ago.
The Northern Guilford graduate faced mental health challenges for many years.
Eventually, a deadly dose of fentanyl would take her life.
“I tell people, I was her biggest advocate her whole entire life and I will be her biggest advocate in her death. I’m not going to have her death be in vain,” said Peeden.
Peeden made it her mission to draw more attention to the growing problem of substance abuse.
Read the complete article on the WFMY News 2 web site.
Fentanyl seized in Carolinas increased 15000% in two years, federal data shows
Last year in both North and South Carolina, federal officers seized 18.75 pounds of the synthetic opioid. That’s more than they located the previous two years combined.
At least 2,500 North Carolinians died from fentanyl overdoses last year, according to the latest state data out this month. The data is only through September of 2022 as the state’s Department of Health and Human Services is still processing information for last year so it is likely this number will climb even higher.
The synthetic drug is now a major focus for law enforcement agencies across the state as it continues devastating communities in and families.
Over the last five years, the number of people dying from overdoses increased significantly. Fatal overdoses in North Carolina jumped 66% from 2018, state data shows. Last year, the crisis claimed the lives of more than 4200 people in the state.
“Fentanyl is really the most dangerous thing that we’ve seen in decades,” said Mike Prado, the deputy special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in the Carolinas.
Read the full story and watch the video on the WRAL TV web site.
Rep. Buddy Carter Introduces Legislation To Classify People Who Died Of Fentanyl Poisoning As Crime Victims
Republican Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter introduced legislation Tuesday that would classify Americans who died of fentanyl poisoning as crime victims.
The Daily Caller first obtained the legislation, which is titled the Recognizing Victims of Illicit Fentanyl Poisoning Act. The bill would add individuals who have died because of illicit fentanyl poisoning to the list of recognized victims maintained by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) within the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The OVC administers the Crime Victims Fund, which supports programs and services that focus on helping victims in the immediate aftermath of crimes and continuing to support them as they rebuild their lives.
Veterans are on the front lines of a US opioid crisis that continues to worsen
The opioid epidemic has continued to plague the U.S. as new threats such as fentanyl spread across the country, placing the nation’s veterans on the front lines of a new kind of war.
“I’ve seen many post-9/11 veterans become addicts due to mental health,” Chelsea Simoni, a clinical nurse researcher and the founder of the Hunterseven Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “I’ve coded many young post-9/11 veterans in the ERs for opiate overdoses. I’ve seen mental health crises from addiction.”
Substance abuse among active duty military and veterans has been an issue policymakers have attempted to tackle for years, with service members being one of the country’s most vulnerable populations – in large part because of the stresses to their mental health in military service. According to a Department of Veterans Affairs estimate, roughly 20% of veterans being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder also struggle with drug or alcohol abuse.
Members of the military are also more likely to suffer physical injuries as part of their duties, a reality that often leads to troops being prescribed highly addictive painkillers.
Read the full article on the Fox News web site.
Monday number: A closer look at the mounting toll of fentanyl on the nation’s youth
Last year, Policy Watch delved into the epidemic within the opioid epidemic: the terrifying rise of synthetic opioid fentanyl and staggering number of deaths it has caused in North Carolina and across the country.
This month a new analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by the nonprofit Families Against Fentanyl sheds new light on the ongoing crisis, particularly deaths among children 14 and under.
The group’s analysis found fentanyl deaths among that group are rising faster than any other, tripling nationwide in just two years from 2019 to 2021 (the last year for which full CDC data is available). Over the same period, fentanyl deaths among infants increased twice as fast as overall deaths.
Read the full article on NC Policy Watch.