We are living in an opioid crisis which has had a devastating impact on the United States. This epidemic has not only effected those struggling with addiction and their loved ones but those tasked with working around this lethal chemical. What is less discussed are the professionals and innocent bystanders who also are being effected by this epidemic. This article aims to shed light on this new and growing hazard.

In the weeks to follow, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho intends to provide Narcan, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses, to every LAUSD campus. This is a great start to helping those who are actively overdosing. However, this does not stop the truckloads of lethal illegal drugs crossing our southern border.

While deaths of fentanyl users increasingly make the headline news, rarely if ever are there the untold stories of those responsible for decontaminating a property to make it fully safe and habitable.

Deaths associated with the illicit flow of fentanyl into American culture is often deemed to be an adult problem. In cities, addicts gathered in small clusters—like The Tenderloin district of San Francisco—will jump at any drug that comes their way. In the suburbs, people craving an exciting recreational high are at full risk because they don’t know what’s in a drug that has been purchased. Online dealers are notorious for flooding the market with fentanyl-laced powders and pills. These cases are proliferating in recent years, though too often they fall out of consciousness as an issue that is irrelevant. But what about the kids?

Nearly 20 years ago, Joe Mazzuca and his wife Julie founded Meth Lab Cleanup Company with the intent to clean up contaminated properties that were used as labs for manufacturing methamphetamine for the black market. In a conversation last fall with Mazzuca, he estimated that there are 2.5 million clandestine meth lab sites in the U.S.

Illicit fentanyl deaths continue to make the news almost daily with nation-wide cases involving recreational users and opioid addicts. The fine line between getting high and bottoming out in death is incredibly narrow. Fentanyl’s lethality amounts to two milligrams—small enough to fit on the tip of a sharpened pencil. That makes a contaminated space of a victim’s use or even as a cutting lab a monumental cleaning challenge for specialized crews.

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 word is only slowly getting out in media circles about the dangers of illicit fentanyl trafficking.

In the 2019 The New York Times Magazine story “The China Connection: How a DEA Agent Cracked a Global Fentanyl Ring,” author Alex W. Palmer wrote: “A kilogram of fentanyl, purchased for only a few thousand dollars, can be mixed with heroin and made into a couple million dollars’ worth of pills. By contrast, a kilogram of undiluted heroin nets less than $80,000 in profit.”

Most people don’t recognize the dangers. Rock stars battling injuries from fatigue on the road have fallen prey to taking pain-killing drugs laced with fentanyl. Two of the music’s superstars fell into that category: Prince and Tom Petty.

Sports stars also have to be aware. Recently former Boston Bruins’ hockey player Jimmy Hayes died, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Massachusetts, “from acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl and cocaine.” He became addicted to painkillers after suffering a hockey injury.

What people aren’t aware of is the tragic consequences of overdoses don’t end merely with a user’s death. Wherever a person has engaged in illicit fentanyl use, the dwelling may become a hazardous waste site. Even inhaling a speck of the drug can prove deadly.