Why Do Teens Die at Home? The Effects of Synthetic Opioids on Drug Overdose Deaths in the U.S.
But there was no candy inside the boxes marked SweeTarts, Skittles, and Whoppers, the sheriff’s department said. Instead, they contained what authorities believe to be thousands of the dangerous pills.
Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, were involved in more than two-thirds of overdose deaths, according to the latest provisional CDC data. The drug meth was involved in almost a third of the cases.
Losing money is really bad. Drug overdose deaths, largely caused by the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl, reached record highs in the United States in 2021. Keep your family safe by learning what you need to know.
It’s important to keep teens safe. The CDC tells us that teens most commonly overdose on their own at home. They die alone in a different room when their parent or someone else dies, with the potential bystander not knowing the teen is using drugs. This may explain why most teens who die of an overdose never receive naloxone, a lifesaving overdose antidote.
Los Angeles Police Department’s opioid overdose alert and naloxone use rate increase in the first 12 months after the Los Angeles High School Overdoses
The pills’ colorful appearance is a “deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in the alert.
Last month, the Los Angeles Police Department announced it was investigating multiple overdoses, including one that resulted in a death, at a high school in Hollywood. The investigators think that the students bought Percocet pills.
The Los Angeles Unified School District announced after the overdoses that it would equip its campuses with doses of the anti-overdose drug, known as “nax”, which temporarily reverses the effects of opiate drug overdoses.
The data was published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over the course of four months, the deaths have dropped 2%, which is about 2,500 fewer than the record high reached in March.
Drug combinations that include Fentanyl and methamphetamine include cocaine and heroin according to a statement from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
For every fatal overdose, there are many more nonfatal overdoses and last week, the Biden administration released a new dashboard to track nonfatal opioid overdoses.
Obtaining and monitoring more real-time data on opioid overdoses that do not end in death could help predict where overdose deaths are more likely to happen and where there might be an increased need for first responders as well as the life-saving medication naloxone, which temporarily reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, Gupta said last week.
According to Gupta’s statement from Wednesday, emergency medical services responded to more than 390,000 activations nationwide that involved the administration of naloxone in the 12-month period ending in July – nearly four for every fatal overdose in the same timeframe.
The statement shows that a large amount of drugs have been seized by US Customs and Border Protection.
The Story of Panic Attacks: How First Responders Learn About Second-Handed Exposure to Opioids
The first responders who sought medical attention after exposure did not find any drugs in their system. “Much of the time, their symptoms were consistent with panic attacks (i.e. shortness of breath manifesting as gasping for breath–versus opioid overdose results in loss of consciousness that then depresses respiration).”
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A feedback loop for first responders is created because news organizations repeating reports without scrutiny are fueling a stigma about second-hand dangers of the drug.
“It’s extremely unlikely that law enforcement officials or other first responders will experience an overdose after brief, unintentional exposure while caring for individuals who used opioids,” said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and CNN medical analyst.
Wen explained that opioids “are not well-absorbed through the skin except through prolonged exposure” and, outside biowarfare situations, are “not aerosolized and inhaled through the air.”
“There is a danger to media accounts with unsubstantiated claims of first responders overdosing after brief, accidental exposure,” Wen told me. “It could dissuade people from assisting those in need.”
Editor’s Note: Dr. Scott Hadland is a pediatrician and expert on adolescent substance use. He is the chief of adolescent medicine at MassGeneral Hospital for Children. He can be followed on multiple social media sites, such asInstagram and LinkedIn. The views are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.
Dialogue with Fake Pills: The Key to Stop Overdosing from Using Pentanyl and Other Phonylated Painkillers
The fake pills will look like real painkillers such as Percocet, OxyContin and other prescription drugs. But, instead, these phony versions contain fentanyl because it is sedating, eliciting a similar effect to the real pills they mimic.
Talk to people you care about. The best way to prevent people from using fentanyl is to educate them. Explain what fentanyl is and that it can be found in pills bought online or from friends. Aim to establish an ongoing dialogue in short spurts rather than one long, formal conversation.
Learn how to spot an overdose. When someone overdoses from Fentanyl, their breathing and skin lightens up. If you think someone is overdosing, call 911 right away. If you are worried that your loved one will be harmed by an overdose, you may want to buy Narcan, a medication that can quickly reverse an overdose, and is often available in local drug stores without prescription.
But getting these services is possible – and critical. Talk to your teen’s doctor about the treatment options and how to navigate them. The US government maintains a database of mental health and addiction treatment programs to help families find care. Many states offer telephone hotlines. The US has a national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline families can call or text. A wealth of education for parents and high-quality tools are available through the Partnership to End Addiction.
Save Lives With Narcan, a Lifesaving Drug for Infants and Infants With An Absence of Anisotropy or Perturbation
Many public health experts believe that if more people had access to the spray at home, or in their pockets or bags, many of their deaths could be avoided.
Understand the effects of Fentanyl. Fentanyl is a potent and fast-acting drug, two qualities that also make it highly addictive. A small quantity goes a long way, so it’s easy to suffer an overdose. There is only a limited amount of time to save a person’s life when they overdose.
The Panelists decided that the spray is an effective way to save lives even in babies who do not have a history of drug use. The panels concluded that there’s no requirement for medical training to use a drug called Naxal.
Side effects, typically symptoms associated with withdrawal, were relatively negligible compared with the medicine’s far greater lifesaving benefit, panel members said. Hundreds of thousands of lives are thought to have been saved thanks to the use of Naloxone.
The drugs blocks the opiate’s effects on the brain. Opiates can depress the respiratory system and other bodily functions. Narcan can wake someone up from a lethal overdose if it is interrupted before it is too late. The instructions on the two-pack carton say that the Narcan administrator should apply one dose in the nostril of a person suspected of having overdosed and then call 911. If the person does not rouse within two or three minutes, a second dose will be applied in the other nostril.