Police warn San Luis residents about vaping
SAN LUIS, Ariz. — Police are beginning to see what they hope is a downward trend in opioid overdoses here, but they’re warning residents about a new threat posed by electronic cigarettes that may or may not be laced with drugs.
While vaping is legal for adults, those who use ecigarettes are putting themselves at risk in not knowing all the substances they are inhaling, said Thomas Forsyth, agent with U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Phoenix.
His comments came in a recent visit he, officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration and San Luis police made to San Luis High School as part of a public forum on the issue of drug abuse.
“An increase is being seen in vaping and no one knows the impact of those products,” he told an audience that included students and parents.
Citing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, Forsyth said 34 people nationally have died from vaping-related causes since the start of the year, while 1,604 people have been hospitalized or become ill in that period.
“The causes of those deaths and illness are not known with exactitude, but the use of electronic cigarettes was reported in all the cases,” he said.
The addition of fentanyl or other illegal drugs to ecigarettes is under investigation as a possible factor in some deaths, he added.
Fentanyl was found recently in an e-cigarette in Peoria, Ariz., although no similar cases have been reported in Yuma County.
An opioid prescribed as pain management drug, fentanyl can be combined with illicit drugs in pill or powder form to create a cheaper, more intense high. But fentanyl is also highly addictive and can be fatal to the user in even small amounts.
One hundred seventyfive deaths involving fentanyl have been recorded in Yuma County from June 2017 through last month, according to CDC statistics.
An increase in the number of fentanyl overdoses began to be seen in late
2018, many of them involving San Luis High School students. That prompted the school and San Luis Police Department to mount a campaign to inform students, their parents and residents about the dangers of fentanyl.
The campaign seems to be working, police Sgt. Damian Miller said, given that the number of times San Luis police officers have had to use the drug Narcan to reverse the effects of a fentanyl overdose has dropped from an average of three a week a year ago to once a month.
San Luis police Lt. Marco Santana said there were 15 reported fentanyl overdoses in San Luis in the first seven months of 2019. From August through late last month, there were five.
“Education and awareness about the dangers of the drugs has helped us a lot, above all in the schools,” Santana said. “People know more about the risks of illegal drugs like fentanyl. When the opioid crisis began (in San Luis), in 2018, very little was known about it.”
The arrests in June of three students who allegedly brought more than 3,000 fentanyl pills on the San Luis campus may be helping to educate the public about drug, he added.
But now parents and the public in general need to be aware of the possible risk of e-cigarettes laced with drugs, he said.
“Using them is like playing Russian Roulette,” he said. “It’s playing with your life.
“Fortunately we haven’t seen any problem with electronic cigarettes in the city, but it’s good the public is aware of those risks.”