Across the United States, a deadly drug has risen in use and has taken the lives of thousands of Americans, a drug that is so potent that it can cause an overdose after someone takes just one pill containing it, whether they knew the pill had the drug or not. This drug is known as fentanyl, and governments, schools and police departments across the country are working to promote awareness of it and stop the crisis in overdoses from it.
Since 2013, drug overdoses from fentanyl and other synthetic drugs have increased significantly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, with more than 73,000 out of 107,543 opioid overdose deaths in the United States in 2023 involving fentanyl, according to the County of Santa Clara. Fentanyl is a type of synthetic, or lab-made opioid, and is extremely potent, as just 2 milligrams of it is lethal, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. Because of this, fentanyl can only be prescribed in specific medical situations, as Wilcox health teacher Ms. Lujan notes, for example, that if someone is going through hospice care, doctors are “going to prescribe you with fentanyl, but it is the most potent, strongest pain medication that a doctor can prescribe.”
Although fentanyl can be legally prescribed in certain situations, it is illegal fentanyl laced with other drugs which is contributing to the new overdose crisis, as Ms. Lujan explains. “The [fentanyl] that’s killing people is made in labs that are not legal,” she states. “They’re putting in all kinds of stuff—poisons—and whatever they can grab” to make illegal fentanyl. As a result, these illegal drugs are made more potent “in that [drug makers] are not regulating how much of the actual ingredient” is in the pill, according to Ms. Lujan.
In more recent years, the number of youth who have become victims of fentanyl overdoses has increased. On average, 22 teenagers a week died of a fentanyl overdose in 2022, and fentanyl now causes 75% drug overdose deaths among teens, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article additionally notes that 84% of teen fentanyl deaths are unintentional. Unintentional overdose deaths include those in which one intended to take a different kind of drug or where one didn’t intend to take a drug at all, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Ms. Lujan explains that when teenagers “think they’re getting a pill—it could be molly, it could be ecstasy, it could be anything … they think it’s a pure form of what they’re wanting, but it’s actually laced with fentanyl.” In fact, it is impossible to check if a pill has illegal fentanyl just by looking at it, and prescribed medication is the only kind safe for use, according to the DEA’s “One Pill Can Kill” campaign.
In response to this crisis, the government and many organizations are leading campaigns to educate people about illicit fentanyl. The DEA launched the “One Pill Can Kill” campaign in 2021 on fentanyl awareness and has spread it in numerous ways, such as by creating “fact sheets” on fentanyl’s dangers and spreading these on social media. Since 2022, the federal government—along with nonprofits, corporations, and other types of organizations—has sponsored National Fentanyl Awareness Day and National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day on April 29 and August 21, respectively, to inform the population on fentanyl, how to prevent overdoses from it and remember those who have died from it.
Local governments are also fighting the fentanyl crisis. In 2024, governor Gavin Newsom signed a law mandating California public schools to educate students on fentanyl in health classes. At Wilcox, the school district organized a fentanyl awareness campaign for the whole school two school years ago which explained the dangers of fentanyl, demonstrated how to use Narcan—a naloxone product that can undo the effects of an opioid overdose—and showed how to test if a pill contains fentanyl. The school did the same presentation with the freshmen last school year. Ms. Lujan notes, however, that no matter how much fentanyl education is put out, it’s up to individuals to stop themselves from overdosing. “As teachers, we do the best we can and we tell [students], ‘We can present you with the information. Here it is, now you’re aware. Now what are you gonna do with that information?’ We can’t force it on anybody, just like anything.”
Opioids have been a problem in the United States for decades, and the rise in synthetic opioids is considered the third phase in the opioid epidemic, according to the CDC. The first wave involved medication drugs that were over-prescribed and began in the 1990s, while the second wave began in 2010 and involved heroin, according to the CDC. The CDC notes, however, that overdoses from both of those drugs have declined in the past couple of years as fentanyl overdoses have risen.
