Just before the turn of the new millennium, my husband and I were sitting in our living room, our sleeping baby in my arms. Somehow we got on the subject of teenage hijinks and the state forest behind our house. My husband and I had both grown up in places with convenient nooks and crannies for teens to get up to the usual teen stuff away from the prying eyes of adults.
We gazed out the back window at the trees. When we were young in the 70s and 80s, it was very typical for teens to sneak out into the woods to smoke some weed (we called it pot!). Of course there was quite a stigma about more hardcore drugs, but there was always this sense that cannabis was no big deal.
But life in the 90s was different. The topic of our conversation was “What will we tell our kid about drugs?” And the reason for our conversation was the so-called War on Drugs, which had imprisoned a large number of young people. At that point, we were regularly reading about young adults losing their freedom over the sorts of mistakes cops used to shrug about.
What will we tell him? we asked each other. Little did we know that we’d face a much harder question 23 years later.
This isn’t 1978
In so many ways, the lives are teens are fundamentally different now. And that means that parenting is fundamentally different. The War on Drugs gave my husband and me pause in 1999, but we had no idea that once our children were young adults, a whole new danger would arise.
I’ve spent the last few weeks reporting on the fentanyl crisis in my county. One thing I learned is that most of us have it all wrong. Most people would probably not get 100% on this important quiz:
True or false:
- Fentanyl overdoses mainly happen to homeless drug addicts
- Fentanyl overdoses happen to people who knew they were taking a dangerous substance
- Opioid overdoses are someone else’s problem
All of those statements are false, it turns out. The fentanyl crisis is not an overdose crisis. It’s a murder crisis.
Murder isn’t too strong a word
The word was used by a grieving mom I interviewed, and at first it gave me pause. She told me that her son’s death would be labeled an overdose, but it wasn’t an overdose since he didn’t mean to take fentanyl at all. He thought he was taking half a Xanax he’d bought from a street dealer. He’d been suffering from anxiety, and the pandemic hadn’t helped. He’d run through his health insurance’s therapy allowance, so now he was self-medicating, as so many do.
He took half a Xanax, went to sleep, and never woke up.
You might argue that this was an unintentional poisoning, but there is clear intent and clear understanding of the consequences on the part of the people who are manufacturing, distributing, and selling these drugs. Manufacturers are adding fentanyl because it’s cheap and because it creates a quick addiction—thus a guaranteed profit. The deaths aren’t affecting their bottom line, so they’re ignoring them, spiking even “prescription” drugs like Xanax with enough fentanyl to kill someone.
So if you think it’s just opiate addicts who are dying, think again. A kid who thinks they’re buying a relatively safe “party drug” can end up addicted or dead from a drug they didn’t even know they were taking.
How that conversation would go now
Here’s where I imagine myself sitting with that baby in my arms now rather than at the end of a very different millennium. Then, we were concerned about the government harming our child who had just been acting as teens have throughout human history. Now, the fear is of a much deeper, much more permanent harm perpetrated by people we can’t vote out of office.
I really don’t know what we’d say.
My heart goes out to parents who have young teens now. These years when our kids are forming their sense of self are so fraught with danger even when someone isn’t willfully putting them in harm’s way.
Let kids know the risk
Young people are dying now. Sadly, the mainstream media seems to be ignoring it, or maybe families are embarrassed and don’t want to admit why their child died.
I wish more families of victims would speak out and educate other parents about what’s happening. I hope that parents are listening and not just falling back on stereotypes—”That would never happen to our kid.”
My article contains tips for talking to your child about drug use, as well as information about how and when to use Narcan/naloxone.
Resources:
- Read my article in Growing Up in Santa Cruz.
- Song for Charlie is a family-run nonprofit charity dedicated to raising awareness about ‘fentapills’ — fake pills made of fentanyl. The website offers parent educational materials.
- Santa Cruz County Health Department’s list of tips for considering whether an adolescent has a problem with alcohol or other drugs.
- Community Prevention Partners addresses youth and community safety through sustainable alcohol and drug prevention efforts.
- SafeRxSanta Cruz County offers support for prevention, increased treatment access, and evidence-based harm reduction practices, to improve community well-being and save lives.
- This poster has lots of good information about different pills that have been found spiked with fentanyl and how to recognize the signs of an overdose.
- If you are in California, you can get Narcan from any pharmacy. The pharmacist can write you a prescription, and you don’t have to have a reason. Health officials recommend that everyone have some at home—if not for your own family, possibly for someone who visits your home. You can also get it free from most public and nonprofit addiction services.
- On my blog: Parenting and Drugs: This isn’t 1978
Podcasts:
- Listen to my full interview with Rita Hewitt of SafeRX Santa Cruz, in which we focus on fentanyl and its effects on youth.
- Listen to my interview on KSQD with Rita, Dr. Jen Hastings, and Dr. Casey Grover about drug use, addiction, and the best ways to combat them in our community.
