Makayla looked beautiful when she went to her room one January night after watching the Harry Potter movie. But when her mother, Shannon, entered the room the next morning, she found the young woman partially seated, leaning against the head of the bed, an orange liquid oozing from her nose and mouth.
“She was tense. I shook her, gave her name and called 911. [o equivalente ao 112 em Portugal]”, – Shannon Doyle, 41, tells AFP from her home in Virginia Beach. “My neighbors came here and we did cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but it was too late. I don’t remember much after that.”
The opioid crisis in the United States has reached catastrophic proportions, with more than 80,000 people dying of overdoses last year, mostly caused by illegal synthetic drugs like fentanyl.
This number is seven times higher than ten years ago.
“This is the most dangerous epidemic we have ever seen,” says Ray Donovan, director of operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration. “Fentanyl is unlike other illicit drugs, it is instantly lethal,” he notes.
Mortality is rising particularly rapidly among young people who purchase drugs on social media with fake prescriptions. What they buy is mixed with or made from fentanyl.
In 2019, 493 teenagers died from overdoses. In 2021, there were 1146.
Drugs and emoticons
Drug dealers contact teenagers via Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and other apps using emojis as codes.
Oxycodone, another opiate, is sometimes advertised as a half-peeled banana; Xanax, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, like a chocolate bar; Adderall, an amphetamine that acts like a stimulant, like a train.
The number of Americans who use drugs has remained the same in recent years, but the fatality rate has changed, said Wilson Compton, deputy director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse.
A cup of heroin is equivalent to a tablespoon of fentanyl, and less than a gram can mean the difference between life and death.
Much of the illicit fentanyl circulating in the United States is produced in clandestine labs by Mexican drug cartels using chemicals sourced from China.
Since fentanyl is much more potent, it takes much less money to fill one tablet of the drug, meaning more profit for the cartels.
A kilo of pure fentanyl can cost up to $12,000 (€11,628) and can be made into half a million pills that will sell for $30 each (about €29) worth millions of dollars, Donovan explains.
It is also easier to sell pills.
Last year, the DEA seized almost seven tons of fentanyl, enough to kill every American. Four out of every 10 pills seized contained lethal amounts of fentanyl.
“One Pill Can Kill”
Photographs titled “The Faces of Fentanyl” are on display in the hallway of DEA headquarters. [As caras do fentanil, a imagem que ilustra este artigo]. In recent years, dozens of people have died because of this drug.
“Makayla. 16 forever,” says one.
The blue pills found in the bed of this A student and “cheerleader” turned out to be 100% fentanyl. Police are investigating but no one has been arrested yet.
Last year, the DEA launched a campaign called “One 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 treat opioid overdose, more affordable.
Shannon created the Makayla Foundation to help prevent tragedies like her daughter’s. This is your way of dealing with grief.
* Maria DANILOVA
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