Fentanyl, a dangerous drug, is taking the United States by storm. A new product that drug-dealers are creating is rainbow fentanyl. These tablets look like Sweet-Tarts, Skittles, and Nerds. With Halloween around the corner, many parents are concerned that their kid’s candy may not be safe.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is overwhelmed by the influx of fentanyl over the last few months. A typical solution to a drug-related problem is to bring in drug-sniffing dogs. However, this drug is extremely potent and can affect search dogs, but doesn’t typically kill them. The Atlantic wrote an article titled “Protecting Police Dogs From Fentanyl” which talks about canine overdoses with fentanyl. According to the article, Olga Khazan writes, “The DEA doesn’t keep records of canine overdoses, but experts say the overdoses, if they happen, are rare.” Ogla also wrote, “... it takes 20 times as much fentanyl to affect a dog as it does a person.” A solution some have thought of is to use testing strips to see if items have the drug in them.
Lev Facher wrote a story on Stat News, titled, “Fentanyl test strips could help save lives. In many states, they’re still illegal.” He writes, “Nothing has made the nation’s addiction epidemic more deadly than fentanyl’s infiltration of the drug supply. Yet in more than a dozen states, tools used to detect the ultra-potent synthetic opioid are still classified as drug paraphernalia — making it a crime to possess or distribute them.” Another important issue is that the drug doesn’t need to be ingested to kill. If it dissolves in your hand, it could also mean serious injury or OD. The Five on Fox quotes, “You get a kilo of fentanyl, $4,000 wholesale, on the street you could make 1.2 million dollars.” The epidemic is getting so out of hand that “we have a fentanyl related death in this country every nine minutes.” Something as potent as fentanyl can kill a person almost instantaneously, with very little side effects until it is too late.
Lowellville’s school nurse, Betsy Wilson, was interviewed about this topic. An issue for the school at the moment is that they are still waiting for the “okay” to have Narcan at the school. A relief to this, though, is that all resource officers in the school have Narcan on them in case of emergency. She also says, “I believe that the new method of selling highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl, made to look like candy to children and young people, is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to target children and young adults.” Betsy believes that a program to educate our students about drugs and their possible effects on the students, could be beneficial in the long run.
A third grade teacher, Mrs. Laraine Matisi was interviewed because of her connections to young children. A program at the school to help educate students about doing the right thing in tough situations is run by Ms. Carlos. Mrs. Matisi says that this program will, “instill in the students the traits that will make them productive and safe. Then, when situations come up where they have to make the right choice, they will be better suited to end up in a positive place.” She believes that people need to always be prepared, and that there is a fine line between “awareness and panic.” Teaching such young kids can come as an issue when attempting to address serious situations, such as this. Matisi said, “our older students can be good models. They can set the expectations. We, at our level, really hit the character traits hard, with read alouds, problem-solving situations, discussions, etc.”
April Purtee, an EMT that works for the Village of Lowellville’s fire department experiences overdoses first hand. April says safety of the responders is extremely important. “We have to make sure we are wearing out PPE, our nitrile gloves, a mask so we don’t inhale it and eye protection so it doesn’t absorb, in any way, into us.” April says there are a few things we could do to help stop the spread of fentanyl. She stated, “trying to get drug dealers off the street in general.. offer more addiction help in the area.” Narcan, as previously mentioned, reverses the effects of fentanyl. When asked if she believes Narcan should become commercially available, she said, “My opinion, no, because people are just using drugs more freely, thinking that once they have that Narcan they are fine, but they aren’t.”
This past Halloween, parents appeared to be much more cautious about checking their kid’s candy. This did not stop kids from enjoying the holiday and going trick or treating. Many houses didn’t seem to be passing out Smarties, Sweet-Tarts, and Skittles possibly because of the fentanyl scare. WTRF daily news wrote an article titled, “Ohio police say candy bar tested positive for meth/fentanyl.” This article is about a candy bar reported by a mother in Byesville, Ohio. Police in the area went to the gas station where this candy was purchased, and those candy bars too tested positive. This could impact the way that people pass out candy in the future. There have been no articles published to date about a decline in sales for Smarties, Sweet-Tarts, or Skittles.