Families still searching for answers against drug overdose crisis 8 years after public health emergency announced

“We need to make sure that our parents and guardians are talking to their kids on a daily basis, regarding the good things about the Internet and also the bad things about the Internet, because there are some negatives to it. And I think it’s important that if parents or teachers or anyone who deals with youth, if they have concerns, to come to the police and tell us what’s going on so we can help those people,” added Constable Mireille Haunts of the Prince George RCMP’s Community Policing Unit.

An infographic shared by the DEA on various emojis and the meaning behind them when dealing with drugs. Miller included this in her presentation when speaking on the importance of parents understanding their children’s actions on social media.

Another big focus of the educational session was explaining just how deadly fentanyl can be. As little as 0.024 milligrams/litre can be lethal. For context, a grain of rice is around 20 to 40 milligrams, meaning 1/1000th of a grain of rice is enough to potentially cause an overdose and end your life.

“These drugs are killing people every day. And it’s not just the people that we see that are homeless or have addiction issues, it’s people in their homes doing this in their bathrooms, in their bedrooms,” said Haunts.

Fentanyl can also be more common than you think. Miller shared that 6/10 pills that contain fentanyl could contain a potential lethal dose, and there would be no discernible way for someone to tell. She used baking chocolate chip cookies as an analogy. If you were to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, it’s likely some cookies would be packed with chocolates, while others may have very little or potentially no chips. Fentanyl mixed with drugs is similar. While some pills, like xanax, ecstasy, and many more, can be safely consumed even when mixed with fentanyl, there is a 60% chance that you may be consuming a deadly pill, as the amount of fentanyl per pill can drastically vary since the street drug dealers making the drugs don’t have precision lab equipment to carefully measure out the amount of fentanyl they want in each pill.

“Kids need to be aware of that. Parents need to be aware of that, and they need to have that discussion,” she said.

Another infographic from the DEA included in Miller’s presentation, explaining six out of ten pills that contain fentanyl could potentially be lethal.

What happens if you encounter someone who has overdosed, but is still alive? While Miller stressed the importance of naloxone kits and calling for help, she says above all else you have to give them “the breath of life,” preferably with a mask. When people overdose Miller said they also stop breathing, so even before calling for help or administering naloxone you need to literally breathe for them, and Miller emphasized the importance of a mask so that you’re giving mouth to mask, rather than mouth to mouth.

“30 seconds is a long time to hold your breath, and you got to remember that person, you don’t know how long they’ve been down for. So I think naloxone is good, but most importantly, it’s the mask,” Miller said.

The most recent numbers show 177 people died in our province due to drug overdose in February, and the Broken Hearts of Fentanyl hope more is done to raise awareness and educate our community so we can see that number get significantly lower.

Local news. Delivered. Free. Subscribe to our daily news wrap and get our top local stories delivered to your inbox every evening.

by Tommy Osborne

Families still searching for answers against drug overdose crisis 8 years after public health emergency announced

What's Trending