San Diego (KGTV) - San Diego leaders are hoping to educate students around the county on the harmful and deadly effects of fentanyl. The awareness effort will be focused on schools.
County supervisors, the District Attorney, and parents who have lost their kids to fentanyl say they want a comprehensive program on the dangers of the drug throughout the county.
“I wear it every day,” Laura Brinker says she wears a bracelet with her son’s name, Conner Fredrick White, to keep his memory alive.
Conner lost his life last year after taking a pill that had fentanyl. Brinker says her son thought the pill was something else to help with his anxiety. The Cathedral Catholic High School student took the drug before school but he never made it to class that day.
“I was not educated as a mother,” says Brinker. “I knew about drugs obviously, but the lethalness of fentanyl, I wasn’t aware of. I don’t think my son was.”
According to the CDC, fentanyl is the number one killer of people between the ages of 18 and 45.
“In 2021 we had over 80-thousand fentanyl deaths in the United States,” says County Supervisor Jim Desmond. “Over 6,000 pounds of fentanyl has been seized in san Diego county last year alone. That’s enough to kill 1.4 billion people.”
The most recent trend across the U.S. are rainbow fentanyl pills that look a lot like candy.
Local leaders and the district attorney are hoping to educate students. The plan is to work with California lawmakers to require fentanyl awareness education in the classroom. If this is approved, the program will also increase Narcan distributions and training for parents and student first responders.
As of right now, the state education code does not have a program that specifically addresses fentanyl.
“In 2009, when the educational mandates were taken away for narcotics, maybe they didn’t envision a narcotic like fentanyl, where one pill can kill,” says District Attorney Summer Stephan.
The County Board of Supervisors will take a vote Tuesday in hopes of moving forward with plans to create a program and requirement that will educate students on the deadly drug.
