Small, hidden, deadly: Fort Worth faces fight to protect kids from fentanyl overdoses

Picture this scene: Your son tells a friend his back hurts from a sports injury. Out of compassion, the friend hands him a tiny pill that looks just like Percocet. But he didn’t get it from a bottle with his name on it, prescribed by a doctor. Within minutes, your son is dead.

Sounds like a scene from a horror film but it’s happening in real life all over the country, including Tarrant County and the rest of Texas.

While purposeful drug use among teens had been slowly declining, accidental fentanyl fatalities — which can occur because a young person takes a counterfeit pain pill laced with the deadly drug — are on the rise.

Since 2015, fentanyl deaths have increased in Texas by 670 percent. In 2021, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department confiscated more than 100 grams of fentanyl. Jennifer Gabbert, chief of staff and public information officer for the department, said in February that the Tarrant County Combined Narcotics Enforcement Team had already confiscated nearly 700 grams this year.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, counterfeit pain pills are especially dangerous for obvious reasons: people think they are purchasing legitimate prescription medications. However, these fake pills often contain lethal amounts of illicit drugs.

Distributors are targeting young people via social media. And while customers think they’re getting oxycodone or Xanax, they are “unwittingly purchasing counterfeit pills that contain lethal amounts of drugs,” like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, that’s cheap, easy to make, and in high demand, the agency says.

Fentanyl is about 100 times more potent than morphine and as such, counterfeit pills that contain fentanyl can be deadly, particularly because a lethal dose of fentanyl is only about two milligrams, approximately the size of a few grains of salt. It only takes a pinch of malice or ignorance to create a deadly combination.

This might be the worst drug epidemic of all because it’s hiding in plain sight. Kids aren’t necessarily seeking to get high or use drugs; they may be looking for pain relief or maybe something to help them focus more in school.

Sam Quinones, an award-winning journalist and author of “Dreamland,” and “The Least of Us,” has become the preeminent expert on opioid and fentanyl use in U.S. communities. In an interview with NPR, he said that the trafficking world in Mexico moved from plant-based drugs into synthetics, such as fentanyl, because they can be made year round.

“Fentanyl is a magnificent drug when used medicinally” to control pain,” Quinones said. But when it’s mixed, it’s extraordinarily potent.

Fentanyl “reaches the brain very, very quickly, dominates the brain, creates overdose very, very quickly with just the most minute amounts. It’s an opioid, so it’s very, very addictive, like heroin,” Quinones said. “In the hands of the underworld, it’s extraordinarily difficult to mix because it’s so potent, because so little of it will kill you.”

The fact that fentanyl is easy to buy on the black market and difficult to mix is why Quinones says it has “changed almost everything about the drug world.”

Texas’ proximity to Mexico makes the state a prime target for pushing fentanyl.

The existence of fentanyl in counterfeit pills typically meant to help people makes the issue complicated for law enforcement and teaching people to avoid it.

Quinones’ solutions center on community: He suggests that small acts of kindness to others might thwart isolation, a common denominator in drug addiction, and could help in spreading awareness.

Dealers commonly use Snapchat and other social media platforms to contact young people and sell pills, so parents, caregivers, family, friends, schools and churches must be vigilant about what kids are doing online.

Parents, educators and pastors must talk to young people frequently about the existence of fentanyl-laced counterfeit drugs and explain exactly why they should never take anything that isn’t from a bottle with their name and doctor’s name on it.

The state can help, too. While much of this is already a crime, we would back a state law that would make drug-induced homicide a crime — it is already a federal law. Half the nation’s states also have such a law on the books.

And ultimately, fentanyl is a textbook case for stronger, smarter border security. It’s a challenge to uncover such a small, potent item, so cooperation with Mexico, now the top source of the drug, is a must.

Accidental fentanyl poisoning is a criminal act that causes nothing but destruction. The Fort Worth community must continue to band together and spread awareness through all means, including social media, and work to prevent this powerful narcotic from harming more kids.

This story was originally published March 30, 2022 at 5:09 AM.