Fentanyl: The Facts, Dangers, and the Urban Legends

In the past few years, Fetanyl’s scary integration into our society has resulted in the contribution of overdoses and the loss of 56,000 lives. Fentanyl is similar to morphine, but is 100x more powerful when it enters the body. Fentanyl is used by doctors as a pain medication to counteract any other opioids being taken and as a pain reliever for people with a high-pain tolerance. 

Street Fentanyl is obtained by illegal drug labs or being stolen from prescribers of the drug. To add to the terrifying factor that Fetnayal carries, you can’t taste or smell the drug. Some of the side effects of fentanyl  is the feeling of being drowsy and sleepiness fully encompassing your body. When someone overdoses from fentanyl, they usually fall asleep and later are unable to wake back up again. Unfortunately, overdose can happen to a person when they know the original person (who was prescribed with fetnanyl’s) dosage. This is due to everyone’s bodies handling fentanyl differently, allowing for a healthy dosage amount for one person being way too strong for another. In addition, the increase in risk is added on when other drugs including alcohol are consumed on top of fentanyl. 

Many drug dealers buy fentanyl in bulk and end up mixing it up with different drugs (heroin, cannabis, methadone, etc), to increase their supply, and even doubling it at times. Also when they combine drugs like fentanyl together, it’s appearance still stays unchanged, looking very legitimate to a consumer. 

In the Woodland Hills community, West Hill baseball and relatives of Cade Kitchen  had to suffer the loss of one of their own. As a member of the 2023 class in El Camino Real High School, he made an indescribable impact to many. Junior Austin Basch(24’) stated, “I knew him, I used to play with him for a couple years and played one full season with him. He was really good, and died from an apparent fentanyl overdose. Very sad.” A member of the West Hills Baseball community made a gofund me to support the family with anything that they will possibly need, following this is the gofund me link. (https://www.gofundme.com/f/g75seg-kitchen-family?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer)

A miscommunication that’s been surfacing the news recently is that idea that fentanyl is laced in your halloween candy. Although this theory is highly believable due to the prominence of fentanyl right now, it is merely an updated version of an urban legend. People in possession of fentanyl only use the candy packets as a way to hide their fentanyl, as it is highly illegal. A person with the illegal drug would not purposely distribute their fentanyl for free, as they would possibly pay a hefty price for it. People are especially inferring that fentanyl is going to be accessible to kids, as the new concept of rainbow fentanyl (fentanyl pills dyed different colors) is attracting kids of different ages. As of today (10/17/22), there have still been zero cases of “rainbow fentanyl” being laced into candy, as it is a myth. Unfortunately as there is always a second side to everything, I’m not eliminating the fact that there are drug users in the world who purposely lace different consumables, but not necessarily candy. 

As this news story about fentanyl is a miscommunication, this is a good warning to the public that we should not always 100% trust news sources that may promote fear. However, pills and narcotics have a very high risk of being laced with fentanyl, meaning that you must be aware and proceed with caution in social situations where drugs and narcotics are present.