Epidemic Within the Pandemic
Killer Counterfeit Pills
In a November 2021 update, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 100,000 people died from overdoses in a 12-month period ending in April—the biggest increase ever seen in the U.S. The culprit? Fentanyl, which was the factor in 60 percent of the fatal overdoses. That represented a massive 50 percent increase in a single year.
The headline in the November 23, 2021 U.S. edition of the London-based newspaper The Guardian reads: “It’s devastating: how fentanyl is unfolding as one of America’s greatest tragedies.” Writer Melody Schreiber quotes Nora Volkow, the director of the Natural Institute on Drug Abuse, as saying, “It’s an epidemic within the pandemic…what we didn’t expect was that during that period there [would] be a massive increase in the entry of these illicit substances into the country.”
Luca Manuel, a 13-year old who died of an accidental overdose in August 2020, when a pill he thought was Percocet was laced with fentanyl. Photograph: Amanda Faith/Reuters
The narrative of the article opened with 13-year-old Lucas Manual. In August 2020, after six months of remote learning, he was excited to become an eighth grader at his school in Redding, California, home. He wanted to be at his best, but Manual was still suffering mouth pain from a root canal performed on him a week earlier. Rather than seek help from a pharmacy, he logged onto Snapchat and sought to get marijuana to relieve the pain. A dealer replied and said he had something better: Percocet.
Shortly after he received his pain-free pills in the mail, Manual popped his first dose while playing a video game. He was dead within minutes of overdosing. An investigation found that the pill was a counterfeit that had been cut with fentanyl.
Manual’s case is not unique in our society. There’s a higher chance today for a lethal fentanyl hit. Even people who are not addicted to opioids but occasionally take drugs for a recreational high are susceptible to die from one miniscule encounter with the illicit drug.
Daniel Ciccarone, the Justine Miner endowed professor of addiction medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Guardian, “The trajectory is up, with no leveling off. There’s nothing that says it’s slowing down. Counterfeit pills are a big part of the story. They look all the world like the real thing.”
There are some solutions to these F-bomb surprises, including the recently developed inexpensive test strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl cut into other drugs, from opioid pain pills to cocaine. And if there is a fentanyl overdose, the naloxone medication can rapidly reverse the effects. However, the med’s price has increased this year and that has led to an alarming shortage.
Brice Harrath shares his story of overdosing on opioids and being administered a life-saving dose of naloxone. He encourages others to be trained to use the medication in the event of the overdose of a friend or family member.
This remains one of our country’s greatest health cataclysms. As Covid-19 deaths rise toward 800,000 people in the U.S., the fentanyl contagion fatalities certainly pales in comparison. But as the drug agencies and health workers agree, the toll of the drug and its contamination of innocent bystanders is on a wildfire path of destruction. Where will it end?
Perhaps in the matter of justice. To close Manual’s story, justice has been at least partially served. Detectives investigating his death have charged the dealer who sold the youngster the deadly drug with murder.
And another positive: Manual’s mother, Amanda Faith Eubanks, has created a support group for families whose children have encountered a similar fate at the claws of fentanyl.
Author Information
Dan Ouellette is a free-lance journalist and author who has covered a range of topics in his decades long career based in San Francisco and since 1999 a resident of New York City. In California he reported on such stories as the dire work at Oakland’s Highland Hospital Emergency Room and how the building of a jazz club in Oakland helped the city resurrect a district that had been neglected. He also wrote about the cultural history of the Volkswagen Beetle that grew into a book on its history, its social impact and its new life as the New Beetle in 1998 (The Volkswagen Beetle Book). In New York, Ouellette largely turned his attention to the jazz scene of the city and international festivals. He was a writer, editor and teacher at City College. He wrote two biographies, Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes (a story about jazz’s greatest bass player), and Bruce Lundvall: Playing by Ear (about the one of the music industry’s most brilliant ears for signing star artists ranging from Herbie Hancock to Norah Jones). In addition to contributing to different magazines and online publications, Ouellette produces a monthly music column, Jazz & Beyond Intel, on his website: danouellette.net. He can be reached at danouell33@gmail.com.
