Makayla Cox, a high school student from the state of Virginia, United States, she thought she was taking medication, to treat pain and anxiety, that her friend had gotten her.
Instead, the pill she took two weeks after her 16th birthday was Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. It killed her almost immediately.
Makayla seemed fine as she headed to her room one January night after watching a Harry Potter prequel. But when her mother Shannon her mother entered her room the next morning she found her partially sitting up, propped up against the headboard of the bed and with orange fluid coming from her nose and mouth.
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“I was stiff. I shook her, yelled her name, called 911”, Shannon Doyle, 41, told AFP at her residence in Virginia Beach, about 400 kilometers south of the US capital.
“My neighbors came and we did CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation), but it was too late. After that, I don’t remember much,” she stated.
x-ray of the crisis
Fentanyl is not like any other illicit narcotic, it’s that instantly deadly
The opioid crisis in the United States has reached catastrophic proportions, with over 80,000 overdose deaths last year, mostly caused by illicit synthetics like fentanyl. This is more than seven times the figure recorded a decade ago.
“This is the most dangerous epidemic we’ve ever seen,” said Ray Donovan, chief of operations for the US drug enforcement agency, the DEA. “Fentanyl is not like any other illicit narcotic, it’s that instantly deadly,” he said.
Deaths are on the rise, particularly rapidly among young people, who obtain drugs on social media with counterfeit prescriptions. The pills they buy are unknowingly laced with or made from fentanyl.
In 2019, 493 teenagers died from overdoses. In 2021, the figure was 1,146.
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drugs and emoticons
Drug dealers target teens through Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and other apps, using emoticons as codes.
The opiate oxycodone can be advertised as a half-peeled banana; Xanax, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, such as a candy bar; and Adderall, an amphetamine that acts as a stimulant, like a train.
The number of Americans who use drugs has stayed about the same in recent years, but how deadly some of them have become has changed, and especially in the case of fentanyl, according to Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. United States Drug Administration.
A cup of heroin is equivalent to a tablespoon of fentanyl, and less than a gram can mean the difference between life and death.
Most of the illicit fentanyl circulating in the United States is manufactured in clandestine laboratories of Mexican drug cartels, using chemicals shipped from China.
Because fentanyl is much more potent, much less is needed to fill a pill, meaning greater supplies and profits for the cartels.
A kilo of pure fentanyl can be bought for up to $12,000 (more than 50 million Colombian pesos) and turned into half a million pills that will be sold for $30 each (about 124,000 Colombian pesos), earning millions of dollars, explains Donovan. Also, it is easier to traffic in pills.
Last year, the DEA seized nearly seven tons of fentanyl, enough to kill all Americans. Four out of 10 pills seized contain lethal amounts of fentanyl.
Photographs titled The Faces of Fentanyl are posted in a hallway at the drug enforcement agency’s headquarters. There are dozens of people who recently lost their lives because of this drug. “Makayla. 16 forever”, reads one of them.
The blue pills found in the bed of this outstanding student and cheerleader turned out to be 100 percent fentanyl. Police are investigating, but no arrests have been made so far.
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The DEA launched a campaign last year called ‘A pill can kill to raise awareness of the dangers of fentanyl.
There are also efforts across the country to make naloxone, a drug that can reverse opioid overdose, more accessible.
Shannon created a foundation in Makayla’s name to help prevent tragedies like her daughter’s. It’s her way of coping with mourning.
MARIA DANILOVA
AFP
VIRGINIA BEACH (UNITED STATES)
Overdose deaths skyrocketed among blacks and natives
Overdose deaths in 2020 increased 44 percent for African Americans and 39 percent for Native Americans compared to 2019.
According to one report, the increase in these deaths is due, in part, to the lack of access to care and intensifying inequality during the time of pandemic.
“Racism, one of the root causes of health disparities, remains a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans”, stated Debra Houry, acting deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a briefing.
“The disproportionate increase in overdose death rates among Blacks and American Indians/Alaska Natives may be due in part to health disparities, such as disparate access to substance use treatment and bias in treatment. ”, assures Houry.
According to the CDC report, the recent increase in deaths is largely due to illegally manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (FMI).
Before the pandemic, the rate of overdose deaths was similar for African Americans, Native Americans, and whites, at 27, 26, and 25 per 100,000 people in 2019, respectively.
But the situation changed radically in 2020, when the figures were 39, 36 and 31 per 100,000 people. Although the increase among whites was not as large as the other two cases, the new rate represents an all-time high.
The results show that the percentage of deaths it is almost seven times higher among Afro-descendant men aged 65 or older relative to that of whites. Blacks ages 15 to 24 experienced the largest rate increase, 86%, compared to changes seen in other groups.
“There was a substantially lower percentage of people from racial and ethnic minority groups who showed evidence of ever receiving substance use treatment, compared to whites,” CDC health scientist Mbabazi Kariisa said during the session. informative.
In fact, most of the people who died from overdoses showed no signs of having received treatment before their deaths.
Areas with the largest income gap between rich and poor had the highest death rates.
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Being in poverty “can lead to a lack of stable housing, reliable transportation and health insurance, making access to treatment and other support services even more difficult,” Kariisa said.
As for the recommendations, Houry said it was vital to raise awareness about the lethality of illicit drugs, particularly fentanyl, and encourage people to take naloxone treatment.
Structural support, such as help with transportation and childcare, can improve access to care and treatment.
“Combining culturally appropriate traditional practices, spirituality, and religion with evidence-based substance use disorder treatment also helps raise awareness and reduce stigma,” said the CDC’s acting deputy director.
“Although we have come a long way in treating substance use disorders as chronic illnesses, rather than moral failings, there is still a lot of work to be done, such as ensuring that everyone who needs these services can get them”, concluded Houry.
AFP
Washington
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