Robin Abcarian
Fentanyl means the end of 'harmless' recreational

Robin Abcarian: The end of ‘harmless’ recreational drug experimentation
By ROBIN ABCARIAN | Los Angeles Times
PUBLISHED: December 7, 2022 at 1:13 p.m. | UPDATED: December 9, 2022 at
8:54 p.m.
This is shocking: Poisoning by illicit fentanyl is now the leading cause
of death for adults aged 18 to 45 in the U.S., says the federal
government, surpassing suicide, gun violence and car accidents.

The tragic stories are becoming commonplace. Three young professionals
in New York City ordered cocaine from the same delivery service and died
alone after the coke turned out to be fentanyl. Three adults died in a
home on the Venice canals after snorting what they thought was cocaine.
A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in Northern California bought what he thought
was a Percocet tablet and died slumped over the desk in his bedroom. A
15-year-old girl was found dead in the bathroom of her Los Angeles high
school after swallowing what she thought was a prescription pain pill.
Five West Point cadets on spring break in Florida were poisoned by
fentanyl-laced cocaine.

You can’t really call most of these deaths and near-deaths overdoses,
though they are usually described that way. “Overdose” to me implies the
victims were aware of what they were ingesting and overdid it. (These
are not people addicted to fentanyl; they haven’t developed a tolerance
for opioids, although anyone who gets clean and relapses could be in
danger of accidentally overdosing.) Instead, these are unwitting
self-poisonings. The victims didn’t sign up for fentanyl.

In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, 107,375
people in the U.S. died of drug overdose or drug poisoning. Sixty-seven
percent, or 71,000 of the deaths, were caused by fentanyl or other
synthetic opioids. More than three-quarters of teenagers whose deaths
were classified as overdoses died by fentanyl poisoning. Many teens find
the drugs through social media sites like Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram.

When used legitimately, fentanyl is a potent and effective painkiller
often used to treat cancer patients. My obstetrician gave it to me 30
years ago to ease the pain of labor.

In Los Angeles County last week, health officials announced that
fentanyl-related deaths have skyrocketed in the past five years.

“Fentanyl is killing everyone and anyone,” Juli Shamash told reporters.
Four years ago, her 19-year-old son died after ingesting fentanyl. “To
the parents out there that think, ‘Not my child,’ think again. This is
killing straight-A students, track stars. All races. All religions. All
socioeconomic groups.”

It really does look that way.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has said 6 out of 10 of the
fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills it analyzed in 2022 contained a
potentially lethal dose of the drug.

Last week in Los Angeles, representatives from a handful of federal law
enforcement agencies (the DEA, FBI, Homeland Security and the Postal
Inspection Service) announced that they have “dramatically ramped up”
efforts to intercept illicit narcotics, prosecute drug purveyors and
find effective ways to educate the public about this menace.

They also revealed that a federal grand jury had just indicted a
Cerritos man, accusing him of procuring raw materials from Mexican drug
cartels, then using high-speed pill presses to make and sell millions of
pills to thousands of customers on the dark net, where anonymity reigns.
Among the seized drugs, equipment and weapons, they said, were more than
20,000 multicolored pills containing fentanyl — “so-called ‘Skittles,'”
made to look like oxycodone pills.

In powder form, fentanyl can look just like cocaine. In pill form, it’s
visually impossible to distinguish fake from real. In fact, as I looked
at photos online, I was shocked that fake pills may actually look more
legitimate than the real ones — with cleaner, sharper markings, for example.

That’s on purpose, said Don Alway, who runs the FBI’s Los Angeles field
office. “For the illicit market,” he told me, “appearances matter.”

Although much of the material used to manufacture fake pills comes into
the U.S. from Mexico, it’s important to note that it is not being
brought in by the millions of migrants who come on foot to our southern
border seeking asylum or work, contrary to what MAGA Republicans would
have you believe.

“It comes in passenger cars, cargo vehicles,” said Bill Bodner, special
agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles field division. “It comes
through tunnels, by ultralight aircraft. Boats come up the coast as far
as Monterey.”

Listen, as a baby boomer who came of age when cannabis was wrongfully
demonized and Richard Nixon’s misguided and racist War on Drugs was
unleashed on the world, my instinct has always been to treat drug
enforcement officials as relics from a “Reefer Madness” past.

But you know what? I’m raising my 12-year-old niece, who is in middle
school, and I am terrified. As wrongheaded as Nixon was, and as
ineffective as Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign was, the battle
against illicit fentanyl, and its slogan “One Pill Can Kill,” are legit.

“I get it,” admitted Bodner. “People will say the DEA is an alarmist
organization, it’s fearmongering. But all I can tell you is what I have
seen. We buy thousands of pills off the street and social media. We test
them. There are no pills on the street right now that are real
pharmaceutical pills. Assume it’s fentanyl.”

In September, describing an “urgent crisis,” L.A. schools Superintendent
Alberto Carvalho announced that all 1,400 of the district’s schools
would be provided with the overdose reversal drug naloxone, sold under
the trade name Narcan, a nasal spray that works instantly.

“I carry it,” said Bodner. “All our agents carry it.”

Because of fentanyl, the era of “harmless” drug experimentation with
pills or powders is over. The street drug supply is poisoned. We have to
make sure our social media-savvy children understand — really and truly
— that one pill can kill.

Robin Abcarian writes for the Los Angeles Times.

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Robin Abcarian
Robin Abcarian writes for the Los Angeles Times.
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More discussion on Twincities.com

On 12/15/22 10:51, a425couple wrote:
> Robin Abcarian
> Fentanyl means the end of 'harmless' recreational
>
> Robin Abcarian: The end of ‘harmless’ recreational drug experimentation
> By ROBIN ABCARIAN | Los Angeles Times
> PUBLISHED: December 7, 2022 at 1:13 p.m. | UPDATED: December 9, 2022 at
> 8:54 p.m.
> This is shocking: Poisoning by illicit fentanyl is now the leading cause
> of death for adults aged 18 to 45 in the U.S., says the federal
> government, surpassing suicide, gun violence and car accidents.
>
> The tragic stories are becoming commonplace.
>

Yes, it matters to me. I had a co-worker for 25 years and
we get together with others most months. During the Covid
school shut downs, his precious, good 17 year old grandson
thought he'd try what others were doing. The manufactured
pill he got delivered, turned out to be a fentanyl
pill, and he took it one night after all were in bed.
And there, and then, he died. Sadly he was found by his
loving mother, and father the next morning.