RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Wake County wants the community’s input on how to spend more than $65 million. The county will receive the money over the next 18 years as part of a national opioid settlement.
The county says it wants people directly impacted by the opioid epidemic to help make these decisions, and they hosted a community meeting Friday, bringing together several different groups sharing their stories.
“She died immediately. Naloxone was not administered and 911 was not called,” said Barb Walsh, executive director of the Fentanyl Victims Network of NC.
In August 2021, Walsh’s daughter Sophia was 24, applying to grad school and getting ready to buy a house, but one day, she stopped at an acquaintance’s house.
“She grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge,” Walsh said.
Walsh said the bottle had fentanyl in it, killing her daughter.
“You go into a black hole when your child dies,” Walsh said.
She joined nearly 150 people at Wake County’s community meeting Friday to discuss how the county should spend money from the national opioid settlement.
“This will really help us define how to make these investments over the next two years,” said Alyssa Kitlas, Wake County’s opioid settlement program manager.
Overdose deaths in Wake County have increased since 2019. In 2021, state health records show 240 people died of of an overdose.
“We’d like to slow that trend and really support people with their most immediate needs,” Kitlas said.
The county wants to keep investing in treatment, early intervention and housing support.
Other groups, like the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, also want to make sure people with firsthand experience are part of making decisions.
During the traffic stop, narcotics agents discovered a liquid fentanyl mixture, marijuana, and fentanyl that was individually wrapped in Brandon Currie’s wallet.
A man was arrested for carrying a pound of liquid fentanyl in Sanford on Monday.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office arrested Brandon Currie during a traffic stop on Third Street in Sanford.
During the traffic stop, narcotics agents discovered a liquid fentanyl mixture, marijuana, and fentanyl that was individually wrapped in Currie’s wallet.
The fentanyl mixture weighed over 500 grams, a little more than one pound.
Currie, 39, was arrested and charged with:
Trafficking opioid by transport
Trafficking opioid by possession
Possession of controlled substance within 1000 feet of a school
Simple possession schedule VI controlled substance
Maintaining a vehicle for sale of controlled substance
Possession of drug paraphernalia
Possession of marijuana paraphernalia
Currie was issued a $100,000 bond on Tuesday by judge.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Lawmakers in the Maryland General Assembly are hearing bills to prohibit the distribution of heroin and fentanyl without lawful authority to do so. Victoria & Scottie’s Law is named in honor of two individuals who died from fentanyl overdoses. The bill would impose up to 20 years of imprisonment on anyone convicted of selling these substances that lead to serious bodily injury or death.
Move will allow school employees to administer overdose rescue drug
In a unanimous vote at its May 8 meeting, the Dare County Board of Education passed a new policy allowing school personnel to administer Naloxone. The so-called rescue drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, Naloxone has become an important tool in the battle against the opioid epidemic.
Dare County School Board Member Matt Brauer asked if school nurses and school resource officers should be the primary administrator of Naloxone.
School personnel are not required to train to use Naloxone, but the policy establishes guidelines for the storage, procurement, administration and other details related to Naloxone on campus. Students and parents or guardians will be notified annually of the policy.
According to the draft policy text in the meeting agenda packet, Naloxone will be stored in the school nurse’s office or another location designated by the school nurse or superintendent, and it “shall be made available to those trained to administer it in the event of a suspected drug-related overdose.”
The school nurse will ensure that all trained staff are aware of the Naloxone’s storage location and will periodically check the expiration date, notifying administration prior to its expiration, according to the policy.
Lists of school district employees who have completed Naloxone administration training will be maintained in the school district’s administrative office and in the head nurse supervisor’s office. Anyone who administers Naloxone “in accordance with North Carolina law is immune from any civil or criminal liability,” the policy notes.
“The Dare County Board of Education makes no representation regarding the availability of Naloxone in the school system at any given time,” the policy states.
The policy also says law enforcement will be notified of the possession or use of illegal substances and that students using illegal substances will be disciplined in accordance with board policies.
Other district policies that were revised or added at the May 8 meeting were done so at the recommendation of the North Carolina School Boards Association, according to Dare County Board of Education Attorney Rachel Hitch.
“But this is one [policy] that came up in conjunction with your local health department,” Hitch said, adding that Assistant Superintendent Steve Blackstock worked on the draft policy in conjunction with school nurses before it was brought to the board for adoption.
During a roughly 10-minute discussion on the topic, School Board Member Matt Brauer asked several questions, including whether the policy came from a standing order from the state. The standing order since August 2017, signed by the North Carolina State Health Director, allows anyone at risk of experiencing an overdose, anyone who may be able to assist someone experiencing an overdose, or anyone who requests naloxone, to receive the medication.
“The standing order from the state removes hurdles for you to have the medicine in the school system if you need it…so that you may [have this policy],” Hitch responded.
“Why wouldn’t we just…lay it off on the school nurse, who is a healthcare provider, or even the school resource officer, who’s a first responder? Shouldn’t they be the primary person to administer” Naloxone? Brauer asked.
Dare County Schools Superintendent Steve Basnight responded that the goal is to make Naloxone available where it’s needed, in accessible locations. Blackstock agreed, adding that many activities take place in school buildings after school hours when the school nurse is not onsite.
The Dare County Department of Health and Human Services distributes Naloxone at no cost to community members, so Hitch noted that teachers and students may already have the medication on hand.
“We figured if it’s in your schools, then we need to make sure that we’re telling people how it needs to be handled,” Hitch said.
In response to Brauer’s question about potential civil litigation, she said that she’d learned from a Dare County Health Department presentation that if someone were not overdosing and received Naloxone, “there are no implications,” meaning they wouldn’t suffer harm.
“The idea was: The administration is easy, the risk is very minimal…and the possibility that the issue finds its way to your schools is unfortunately very high; so that was the thinking behind the policy,” Hitch said.
Board Member Mary Ellon Ballance said that some teachers and substitutes are also trained first responders or volunteer first responders who may have used Naloxone in that role to treat overdoses. “I know that Hatteras has several that are also members of the rescue squad and work at the rescue squad in the summer, so they would have access [to Naloxone].”
Board Member David Twiddy asked about what might happen if a student experienced an overdose while on an activity bus away from campus and no one there had the medication.
Basnight said that the policy doesn’t require Naloxone to be available in “every aspect of school life. What we’re saying is, if it’s going to be in the building, here’s where we want it.”
“It’s similar to the AEDs [Automated external defibrillators], Hitch added. “We don’t have them everywhere, but we know that if we have them somewhere, that we have a chance of helping a kid.”
Patricia Drewes decided to write the message. She wrote Heaven’s story in a letter, wrapped it in a photo of her and sealed it in a bottle. It was found in France.
When Patricia Drewes dropped a message in a bottle off the Carolina coast, she didn’t expect it to be found halfway around the world – but she hoped it would.
“I wanted anyone who found that bottle to know the story of this beautiful girl who had such a beautiful life and a beautiful heart,” Drewes said.
Her daughter, Heaven Leigh Nelson, died of a Fentanyl poisoning in 2019. She was 24.
“These kids are getting illicit synthetic Fentanyl and they don’t have any clue that’s what they’re getting,” Drewes said. “”(Her) life was stolen from her, from myself, from her family, from her friends by a poisoning.”
Since then, Drewes has been raising awareness about the dangers of the illicit drug while caring for her grandson.
“I am the founder of Forgotten Victims of North Carolina. We have eight chapters across the state,” Drewes said. “We reach out to these families, we support these families and our motto is ‘No one stands alone’. That’s the one thing I remember is being alone and thinking I was the only person in the world that this has happened to. We offer support to these families and we become friends and then we become family.”
Every year, Drewes and her grandson take a beach trip on Jan. 28 – Heaven’s death date.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – More children in North Carolina are dying from fentanyl in recent years. The North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force took a closer look at those deaths and what could be done to prevent them during its meeting Thursday.
The N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Chief Toxicologist Sandra C. Bishop-Freeman shared the harrowing data with the task force.
“It has become clear that fentanyl is the first and foremost opioid that is currently causing illicit deaths in the pediatric population,” said Bishop-Freeman.
Bishop-Freeman said 108 North Carolina children died from fentanyl in the past decade, most of them are teenagers or are babies and toddlers.
“We have older individuals that are using the drug recreationally, either knowingly or unknowingly, and toddlers and infants that are finding the drug through exploration,” Bishop-Freeman said.
She said there’s been a huge increase in the past few years, with 35 fentanyl deaths in 2022 for teenagers and children below 5.
Marty McCaffrey sits on the state committee that reviews child deaths.
“It’s always been the worst meeting and the most horrific meeting I go to every month, but over the last couple of years I will say, if it’s possible, it’s gotten even more horrible,” McCaffrey said.
McCaffrey and others in the meeting said when it comes to solutions, safe storage is critical.
He suggests giving mothers who have known substance abuse issues secure boxes. He also suggests that after a mother gives birth hospitals should send her home with Narcan if doctors know the children in that home may be at risk for coming in contact with drugs.
“I mean, we’re going to have to accept, and really change our culture, about how we deal with some of these moms, all of these moms, with substance use, and recognize there’s good harm reduction strategies we have to start employing,” McCaffrey said.
18-year-old Jacob Cope died on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. According to a Facebook post from Franklin County Sheriff Kevin White, Cope died from accidentally ingesting “the tiniest amount of fentanyl
According to a Facebook post from Franklin County Sheriff Kevin White, Cope died from accidentally ingesting “the tiniest amount of fentanyl.”
“His family is scarred forever,” White said.
Cope’s friend, 2023 Heritage High School graduate Wilson Moore, was also found dead that morning.
White said he keeps Cope’s photo in his office to remind him why he wanted to become Franklin County Sheriff.
“It hits close to home for me,” he said. “It will serve as a constant reminder of the passion I have to end the rapid decline that is eroding our neighborhoods, our state and our country.”
It is unclear if fentanyl ingestion is the cause of Moore’s death, but Moore’s mother suspects it is drug-related.
