Fentanyl Awareness

by Carrie McKinley, CPP, BLS, AAC Prevention Services Program Manager Pend Oreille County Counseling Services

What is Fentanyl? Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is tasteless, odorless, and extremely potent. To put it into perspective, a dose of fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine. Every person is different, but two salt-sized grains of fentanyl can be enough to cause an adult to overdose. Fentanyl is not created in a regulated lab. Instead, it’s mixed into pills and powders and the amount distributed is totally random. Every pill starts out as powder. Since it’s very cheap to make and very strong, it’s added to increase the distributor’s profit of their product (painkillers, benzodiazepine, and more). These drugs are known as “Counterfeit Killers” because they are disguised as something else such as oxycontin. If you wouldn’t play Russian Roulette, you should not buy “prescription pills” on the street or ONLINE due to the high possibility they could be laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl. The risk is real since fentanyl cannot be seen and there is no way to know if it’s been evenly distributed into each dose. This means that ANY pill, bump, line, or hit could be the one that causes an overdose, even if another one didn’t. These pills look real, so when buying them online, from your friends, from friends of friends, or even from typical dealers, they won’t necessarily know if their supply is laced. Please know, if your pills are not prescribed directly to you, they could be deadly.

#NewportKnows

Fentanyl is also strongly associated with much higher rates of fatal overdose among young adults than other forms of opioids in the recent past. A pill that looks like a legal prescription opioid may provide a false sense of safety, especially among younger people who are less experienced with drug use and who, in general, tend to underestimate personal risks compared to older adults. A very small amount of fentanyl produces a very strong effect quickly (often within seconds) that also goes away quickly (within minutes). The rapid and short effect of fentanyl means that it is has very high addiction potential as well as very high overdose potential. Because fentanyl causes rapid tolerance, people who use it regularly will quickly need more drug to get equal effect.

Younger adults may believe they cannot “become addicted” to fentanyl because they are healthy, using a pill that does not look illegal, and they are not injecting it. However, many people are quickly becoming addicted to opioids who have used no opioid other than fentanyl and have never injected it. For those who are using fentanyl regularly and having bad effects (e.g., overdose, loss of control over use, and/or craving) they may well have opioid use disorder. Fentanyl is on a trajectory to increase opioid addiction and overdose among young adults and replace heroin as the predominant opioid among those 30 and older.

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According to the Bonner County Sheriff’s office:

- Fentanyl is involved in MORE deaths of Americans under 50 than any other cause of death, including heart disease, cancer, and all other accidents.

- Practically all the pills seized by law enforcement are fake, and 40% contain a potentially LETHAL amount of fentanyl.

- Fentanyl is involved in more American youth drug deaths than heroin, meth, cocaine, benzos, and Rx drugs COMBINED.

- Fake pills have been found in ALL 50 states. Assume any prescription medication you see online is fake, including Oxy, Percocet, and Xanax.

- Fentanyl is cheap, potent, and profitable, so dealers use it to make fake pills. It can also be found in party drugs like cocaine and MDMA.

- Illegally made fentanyl is the primary driver of the recent increase in all U.S. overdose deaths. Fentanyl involved deaths are FASTEST growing among 14 to 23 year-olds.

What we can do

Fentanyl use and overdose deaths appear to be occurring primarily among three groups:

• young adults inexperienced with opioids.

• young adults with rapid onset opioid use disorder (addiction); and

• older adults with ongoing opioid use disorder (who are often switching from heroin). Anyone who uses fentanyl/opioids, along with their friends and family, should know how to prevent an overdose, recognize the signs of overdose, and know how to respond and use the overdose reversal drug, naloxone. Information about opioid overdose, fentanyl, and how to get naloxone can be found here: https://stopoverdose. org/section/fentanyl/

It starts with one person spreading awareness and knowledge, please help us share this important and lifesaving information https://getthefactsrx.com/.

Carrie McKinley, CPP is the Prevention Program Manager at Pend Oreille County Counseling Services and a Certified Prevention Professional. She has been with the Prevention Department for 10 years and leads a team in implementing the Community Prevention & Wellness Initiative (CPWI) in Pend Oreille County.

Carrie has a bachelor’s degree from Whitworth University and is currently a graduate student at Boise State University studying clinical social work.

Pend Oreille County Prevention, Carrie McKinley cmckinley@pendoreille.org

Newport Youth Task Force, Beverly Sarles bsarles@pendoreille.org

Selkirk Wellness Coalition, Helene Rasmussen hrasmussen@pendoreille.org

Banta-Green, C.J. (2021). Fentanyl data trends.

Presentation to Transforming our Communities June 30, 2021

Washington state opioid trends: Deaths (uw.edu) https://adai.uw.edu/wadata/ deaths.htm

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