Category: National News

What congress can do about illicit fentanyl

Photos of Americans who died from a fentanyl overdose are displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on July 13, 2022. (Photo by Agnes Bun/AFP via Getty Images)

On Jan. 3, a new U.S. Congress will be sworn into office for the 118th time in our nation’s history. Sadly, for the first time ever, these new and returning legislators will assume office under the dark milestone of more than 100,000 drug-related deaths in the past year — an all-time high. Congress can and must act quickly at the national level to turn this deadly tide. 

With drug-related fatalities at an all-time high and likely going higher, it’s clear that the status quo isn’t working. New policy approaches matched with recent innovations in treatment are necessary to overcome the stratospheric overdose rate. 

Read the full article on The Hill web site or download article PDF.

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Narcan kits installed in high schools to fight teen overdoses

A growing number of schools are installing kits stocked with naloxone, also known as Narcan, amid an alarming surge in teen overdoses. NBC News’ Morgan Radford reports from Camden County, New Jersey, to learn about one district’s plan to protect students as dangerous fentanyl becomes more prevalent.

View the original NBC News story on YouTube or the article and video on WRAL.com.

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

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.

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.

Do You Know What A Pill Press Is?

Drug counterfeiters can acquire a pill press and a counterfeit pill mold to churn out counterfeit medications for less than $500. Unfortunately, “garage manufacturers” are not careful about manufacturing controls, and their products often contain fatal doses of fentanyl or other drugs. Since 2015, bootleg prescription drugs made with machines like these have killed unsuspecting Americans in 37 states.

The Partnership for Safe Medicines has more information about Pill Presses on their web site.

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