Drug overdoses now killing equivalent of classroom of high schoolers every WEEK

Deadly fentanyl kills the equivalent of an entire classroom of children every day, staggering numbers show.

Fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than morphine, is devastating America’s youth.

A recent study found that fentanyl was responsible for the deaths of 1,557 children by 2021 – the equivalent of 30 children per week.

Just two milligrams of fentanyl — imagine 10 to 15 grains of table salt — can kill, and it’s increasingly polluting the U.S.’s illicit drug supply because it’s cheap, potent, and keeps many users coming back for more.

The number of deaths from fentanyl in the US increased sharply in the 2010s. At the beginning of the decade, 2,666 Americans died of fentanyl overdose. This figure rose to 19,413 in 2016. Covid made the situation even worse, with a record 72,484 deaths recorded in 2021

Drug overdoses now rank as the third leading child killer every year, after gun violence and car accidents.

The country’s drug overdose crisis has affected everyone, with a record 107,622 Americans dying of drug overdoses last year. More than 70 percent of deaths were caused by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Overdose deaths from fentanyl far exceed those caused by other drugs, including benzodiazepines, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and prescription drugs.

A report published in JAMA last year showed that the number of fatal overdoses caused by benzodiazepines increased by about seven percent between 2010 and 2021, while the number of deaths from cocaine, prescription opioids and heroin decreased.

Dr. Julie Gaither, a pediatrician at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, enrolled JAMA Pediatrics“Following trends seen in adults, childhood deaths from fentanyl began to increase significantly in 2013, resulting in a more than 30-fold increase in the death rate between 2013 and 2021.

“A surge that began in 2018 has led to an almost three-fold increase in deaths among older adolescents and an almost six-fold increase among children under the age of five.”

Overall, there were 13,861 opioid-related deaths among those under 20, of which 5,194 — nearly 38 percent — involved fentanyl.

The vast majority of these deaths, nearly 90 percent, occurred in teens ages 15 to 19, while two percent occurred in infants under one year old and 4.6 percent in toddlers ages one to four.

Last month it was revealed that a 19-month-old baby girl died of fentanyl poisoning in 2021 when she and her parents stayed at an Airbnb property in Florida.

It’s not clear how the child gained access to fentanyl, but the parents claimed in a wrongful death lawsuit against the company that the property was a well-known party house, despite it being advertised as a “peaceful place to stay.”

Fentanyl has devastated American cities and towns of all sizes. A recent government report shows that the rate of fatal overdoses with the synthetic opioid more than tripled between 2016 and 2021, from 5.7 per 100,000 in 2016 to 21.6 in 2021.

San Francisco, the epicenter of the West Coast fentanyl crisis, saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year.

Data from the city’s coroner’s office shows that 200 people died from overdose between January and March, compared to 142 deaths in 2022. That equates to one overdose death every 10 hours.

San Francisco saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023

People openly smoke drugs on the sidewalk of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent months

Pediatricians are urging parents to keep their children as far away from drugs as possible, especially fentanyl, and speak honestly and candidly to their children about the threat posed by opioids.

Dr. Scott Hadland, an addiction specialist at Mass General for Children Hospital in Boston, suggested that health care providers ask teens what they know about fentanyl, whether their peers are on drugs or if someone they know has overdosed, and whether they know how to have to respond to a fentanyl overdose.

“Don’t try to scare teenagers. Play to their strengths. Equip them with the knowledge and strength to stay safe,’ he said said.

Dr. Hadland and countless other physicians have called on the public to ensure that naloxone is a standard component in their first aid kits.

The Food and Drug Administration, the main federal regulator of medications, has taken steps to make the reversal drug, specifically the nasal spray formulation marketed as Narcan, available without a prescription or even without having to visit a pharmacy.

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist, meaning it works by binding to opioid receptors to rapidly reverse the effects of opioids, the symptoms of which include slowed heart rate, low blood pressure, loss of consciousness, slow or shallow breathing, gurgling sounds, blue lips or nails, and vomiting.

The antidote can reverse an overdose in minutes, but takes about 90 minutes at most, meaning someone can overdose even after naloxone wears off.

Some opioids may also require more than one dose of naloxone to counteract the effects.

Narcan is already available without a prescription in all 50 states, where state leaders have issued standing orders for pharmacists to sell the drug to anyone who asks.

But not all pharmacies carry it, and those that do have it must keep it behind the counter. And even without the need for a doctor’s prescription, many people feel reluctant to approach a pharmacist for the medication, wary of the stigma associated with substance abuse.

Dr. Hadland said: ‘Most teens who overdose die at home when someone else is there and could respond. But most of the teens who die never get Narcan and are pulseless by the time the paramedics arrive.”

The FDA’s distinction paves the way for the antidote to be more accessible than ever in vending machine gas stations.