Fentanyl killed a classmate. Families at Kansas City school learn how to prevent more
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Fentanyl-spiked pills killed these Kansas City area teens
Amid an explosion of fentanyl overdoses, the families of two Kansas City area teens who recently died are speaking out, calling attention to the crisis.
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One of the first fentanyl overdose cases the Clay County Sheriff’s Office investigated involved two girls who drove more than 30 miles from Olathe to score drugs. It was the last trip one them ever made.
On the drive home, they each took a pill of what they thought was oxycodone. By the time they reached Olathe, one girl was dead in the car. Her pill was laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
By now, hundreds of parents and students in the Northland have heard that story. It’s an anecdote members of the sheriff’s drug task force share at drug education summits they’ve been leading since December.
They led another Wednesday night at Oak Park High School, where students recently experienced the grim fallout of the nationwide fentanyl crisis up close.
In late March, one of their fellow students, 16-year-old sophomore Ethan Everley, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. His father found him at home in his bed. Ethan had taken a little blue pill he didn’t know was laced with fentanyl and was pronounced brain dead days later at Children’s Mercy.
After he died, the North Kansas City school district asked the sheriff’s office to come speak to parents and students. On a mid-week night, with sports and other activities taking place at the same time, the audience wasn’t huge, around 50.
But Sheriff Will Akin’s office is in a race to save lives.
With fentanyl flowing into Kansas City, kids buying it easily from popular social media websites like Snapchat, and students like Ethan taking pills without knowing what they really are, Akin’s office wants the public’s help to stop the explosion of overdoses.
They say that includes the stay-at-home mom who knows everything that goes on in the neighborhood, a valuable set of eyes and ears on the ground for law enforcement. The breadth of the fentanyl crisis has put new meaning into the phrase “It takes a village.”
“We have to come up with another way to fight this,” Sgt. Gary Blackwell told the audience.
Last month, the Kansas City Police Department announced that accidental overdoses from fentanyl had climbed nearly 150% from 2019 to 2020 in the metro area, particularly noticeable among ages 15 to 24. Last year, out of 129 overdoses, 50 were fentanyl-related, KCPD said.
Kids like Ethan think they’re buying and taking Xanax, Percocet, OxyContin and other pharmaceuticals, not knowing that some are counterfeit pills jacked up with enough fentanyl to kill them.
Parents were encouraged to talk to their kids about drugs. Andy and Alicia Hankins, who took their 13-year-old daughter, Gracie, to the talk, said they didn’t know how bad the fentanyl situation was until they heard of Ethan’s death. Gracie is a seventh grader in the district.
Alicia Hankins said she didn’t think many parents know what’s going on. She didn’t.
“I don’t think I realized that this was such a big thing going on in the community, especially the schools,” she said.
She said news of Ethan’s death upset their daughter. They talked with her about drugs and pills, and when they saw the summit was being held, “we thought as a family it was important for all of us to come and just see what is going on.”
Sitting near the front in the school auditorium, all three watched and listened intently as Blackwell and his partner on the drug task force, Jeremy Fahrmeier, showed slides of fake Percocets — “little blues” — and bar-shaped Xanax, which experts say is popular among Johnson County youth.
Blackwell said it’s getting harder to tell the fakes from the real things because the bad guys are getting better at their game.
They encouraged parents to Google drug slang and told them what “chasing the dragon” means: They showed pictures of crumpled squares of aluminum foil with black burn marks. Users put pills on top of the foil, heat them from below and use straws to inhale the smoke for a different kind of high.
“If you see this, someone is smoking a tablet,” said Blackwell.
The sheriff’s office found 102 pieces of aluminum foil like that in a drug house about a month ago. They also found a 14-year-old girl hiding in the clothes dryer, a victim of human trafficking.
The officers shared an email address that people can use to anonymously report suspicious activity in their neighborhood.
Miles Aley, a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, emphasized that federal officials need help from the public, too. He asked people to talk to their friends and family members and to tell kids not to take pills that don’t come from their doctor or a pharmacist.
The theme of the DEA’s public awareness campaign is One Pill Can Kill.
Aley shared that some of his own friends in college took molly, or ecstasy, but wouldn’t do that today, not with fentanyl being found in just about every street drug. “It’s too risky now,” he said.
He also cautioned people about letting loved ones “take any of your leftover drugs,” because sharing medications can be a dangerous first step toward addiction.
He encouraged people to take advantage of the DEA’s biannual National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. The next one is Saturday.
Thousands of collection sites will be set up across the country, where people can drop off potentially dangerous unused, expired and unwanted prescription drugs. It’s free and anonymous.
It’s an effort to keep the drugs out of the hands of family members, including children and teens, and others who might misuse or abuse them, or even sell them. Many people who misuse prescription drugs get them from a family member or friend.
You can find collection sites and other information at DEATakeBack.com.
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 12:21 PM.
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