San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Texas campaign focuses on fentanyl crisis
With fentanyl showing up in the state at “an alarming rate,” authorities have launched a public awareness campaign on billboards and elsewhere to warn of the dangers of the synthetic opioid, often sold in counterfeit pills that can contain lethal doses.
Representatives of government and public health agencies said the campaign aims to sound the alarm about the increasing illegal trade and the impact of fentanyl, along with the upward trend of the counterfeit pills.
“One pill can kill” and “Fentanyl can kill: The first time could be your last time” are among some of the messages displayed on the billboards. They come as a record number of people are dying from overdoses in Texas, with fentanyl driving what has been nationally recognized as an epidemic.
Fentanyl “is coming to Texas at an alarming rate,” said Jason Taylor, regional director of the state Department of Public Safety for Southeast Texas.
DPS alone seized the equivalent of 288 million lethal doses of fentanyl in Texas during the last 12month period, Taylor said.
The confiscations resulted
from long-term investigations as well as an increase in roadside findings by state troopers, said Taylor, who chairs the executive board of the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Office, part of a nationwide program that coordinates federal, state and local efforts in critical drug-trafficking
areas.
“Right now, there’s already a 45 percent increase of fentanyl that we’re taking off the street,” said Daniel Comeaux, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Houston division. “And we’re not even midway through the year.”
Nine billboards are already up in the Houston metro area, with more set to follow in other parts of Texas.
While the crisis was initially associated with prescription painkillers containing opioids — and later with heroin — the third wave, driven by fentanyl, is now contaminating almost all forms of consumption involving so-called recreational drugs.
Counterfeit pills are flooding black markets in Texas and across the country, officials said.
One billboard displays an image of Ian Mackay, a teenager who died from an overdose involving fentanyl consumed in the form of a counterfeit pill.
“At 19 years old, Ian was full of life, love, and laughter,” his mother, Mary Palmer, said in a message read at a Thursday news conference by Melissa Romain, a representative from the Prevention Resource Center, a program of the Council on Recovery in Houston.
Ian “loved traveling, baseball, his family and his friends, but in an instant, and with one pill, all of this was gone,” Palmer wrote. “As a family, we are devastated.
“We hope to spare another family the devastation that we have gone through. We hope that someone driving past one of the billboards will say ‘no’ to a pill or they will dispose of a pill that they already have.”
Experts warned against perceptions that the opioid crisis and its rising toll of overdoses is something that affects “others.” It has affected people of all ages and walks of life, they stressed, adding that fake pills potentially containing fentanyl can be bought on the streets and online.
“You may believe your child is not the type to ever buy or take the pill from another person, but I’ve heard lots of stories from many parents who felt the same,” said Paul Fortenberry, an assistant district attorney in Harris County.
As law enforcement agencies ramp up efforts to combat the illegal trade of fentanyl, the fight needs to include raising public awareness, authorities agree.
“These billboards create visibility about a disease that is all too often invisible,” said Judy Johnson, chief development and communications officer at the Council on Recovery in Houston. “They shine a light on the dangers of the opioid epidemic and connect parents to resources to help them keep their children safe.”