Makayla Cox, a high school student in the State of Virginia US, thought he was taking medicine that had been obtained by his friend to treat pain and anxiety.
Instead, the pill he drank two weeks after his sixteenth birthday was Fentanyl, synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin. It killed him almost instantly.
After watching the movie – Prequel “Harry Potter” – With his mother Shannon one night in January, Makayla looks fine when he goes to his room with his dogs who often sleep in his bed.
But when Shannon entered the Makayla room the next morning, he found some of him sitting, perched on the headboard, the orange liquid came out of his nose and mouth.
“He was stiff. I shook him, I shouted his name, I called 911,” Shannon told AFP. “My neighbor came and did CPR, but it was too late. After that, I just didn’t remember much.”
The American opioid crisis has reached the proportion of disasters, with more than 80,000 people died opioid overdose last year, most of them because of illegal synthetic like Fentanyl – more than seven times the number of decades ago.
“This is the most dangerous epidemic we have ever seen,” said Ray Donovan, Head of Operations at the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). “Fentanyl is not like other prohibited narcotics, it is very deadly.”
And death is increasing especially among young people, who get fake prescription drugs through social media. Unknown to them, the pills come with or made of Fentanyl.
In 2019, 493 American teenagers died of drug overdose, in 2021 the figure was 1,146.
Dealers seek teens via apps
Drug dealers reach teenagers in applications such as Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram and others, often using emojis as a code.
Oxycodone, opioids, can be advertised as a half -permanent banana, xanax, benzodiazepine which is used to treat anxiety, as chocolate, and addell, amphetamines that act as stimulants, as trains.
Wilson Compton, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, said that the number of Americans who did drugs was mostly the same in recent years, but what changed was how deadly they were.
One cup of heroin is equivalent to one teaspoon of Fentanyl, and less than one gram can mean the difference between life and death.
“It takes a very small amount to be a poison that can stop someone breathing,” Compton told AFP in an interview.
Most illegal fentanyl in the United States is produced by Mexican drug cartels in the Klandestin laboratory from chemicals sent from China.
Because Fentanyl is much stronger, it takes less to fill the pill, producing more supplies and more advantages than cartels.
One kilogram of pure fentanyl can be purchased up to $ 12,000, pressed to half a million pills which will be sold up to $ 30, sweeping millions of dollars, Donovan said. And also much easier to smuggle the shape of the pill.
Last year, Dea confiscated 15,000 pounds (almost seven tons) of Fentanyl – enough to kill every American. Four of the 10 pills seized contain the deadly number of Fentanyl.
‘One pill can kill’
At the agency head office, a photo collection of photos titled “Faces of Fentanyl” Hang in the hallway. It shows dozens of portraits of new people who lost their lives because of Fentanyl. One of them reads “Makayla. Forever 16.”
An Honor-Roll Student and a Cheerleader, Makayla Liked to Paint, Cuddle with Her Huskies, Maize and Malenkai, and Planned to Go To University to Study Law, Said Her Mother Shannon Doyle, 41, Who Works as a Paralgal in a Loan Service company.
Makayla struggles against anxiety after the divorce of her parents, but everything is worse during Pandemi.
Last summer he started work in a water park, where he met a friend who introduced him to fake prescription drugs.
The blue pill found on Makayla’s bed turned out to be 100 percent fentanyl. The police are investigating, but so far there has been no arrest.
“In the past when you are addicted to drugs, you have five, 10, 15 years to try and overcome your addiction and get help and change your life,” Shannon said at his home on Virginia Beach, a city on Atlantic Beach about 240 miles (400 kilometers ) Southern US capital.
“You don’t have that chance anymore.”
Last year Dea launched a campaign called “One Pill Can Kill” to increase awareness of the dangers of Fentanyl, and there were efforts throughout America to make Naloxone, drugs that could reverse opioid overdose, more easily available, including at school.
Abu Makayla was in his room and Shannon was still peering into the room every morning and evening, as he did when his daughter was still alive.
He started a foundation with the name Makayla to help prevent a similar tragedy – a way, he said, helped him overcome his sadness.
Makayla’s best friend, Kaydence Blanchard, 16, spends summer without him, trying to realize the dreams of the girls: to get a driver’s license and drive to the beach.
But for Makayla “the future will never happen,” Blanchard said. “He will never complete whatever plans we have together.”