Makayla Cox, a high school student from Virginia, USA, thought she was taking medicine to cure pain and anxiety that her friend had taken it. Instead, the pill she took two weeks after her 16th birthday was fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful compared to heroin. He killed her Almost immediately.

Makayla looked fine as she headed to her room one January night after seeing a “Harry Potter” prequel. But when her mother Shannon walked into her room the next morning, she found her partially seated, leaning against her headboard and an orange liquid coming out of the nose and mouth.

“She was stiff. I shook her, called her by name, called emergency health services,” said Shannon Doyle, 41, at her Virginia Beach home, about 250 miles south of the US capital. United.

“My neighbors came and we did CPR, but it was too late. After that, I don’t remember much.”

catastrophic proportions

The opioid crisis in the United States has arrived catastrophic proportionsmore than 80,000 deaths from overdose last year, mostly caused by illicit synthetics like fentanyl.

This is more than seven times the figure recorded ten years ago.

“This is the most dangerous epidemic we have seen, “said Ray Donovan, chief of operations for the US drug enforcement agency, the DEA.” Fentanyl is not like any other illicit narcotic, it is immediately lethal. “

Social networks

Deaths are on the rise, particularly rapidly, among young people getting drugs on social media with counterfeit prescriptions. The pills they buy, without knowing it, are crossed or based on fentanyl.

In 2019, 493 teenagers died from an overdose. In 2021 the figure was 1,146.

Drug traffickers reach out to teenagers via Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and other applications, using emoticons as codes.

opium oxycodone can be advertised as a half-peeled banana; Xanax, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, such as A chocolate bar; and Adderall, an amphetamine that acts as a stimulant, such as a train.

The number of Americans who use drugs has remained virtually unchanged in recent years, but the way they have become lethal has changed, according to Wilson Compton, deputy director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse.

One cup of heroin is equivalent to one tablespoon of fentanyland less than a gram can make the difference between life and death.

who do it

Most of the illegal fentanyl in circulation in the United States is produced in clandestine laboratories of the Mexican drug cartelsusing chemicals shipped from China.

Since fentanyl is much more potent, it takes a lot less to fill a pillwhich means more supplies and profits for the cartels.

One pound of pure fentanyl can be purchased for up to $ 12,000 and converted in half a million pills which will sell for $ 30 each, making about $ 15 million, Donovan explains.

Also, it is easier to trade it in pills.

Last year, the DEA seized nearly seven tons of fentanyl, enough to kill all Americans. Four out of 10 pills seized contain lethal amounts of fentanyl.

Titled photographs “The faces of fentanyl”. There are dozens of people who have recently lost their lives due to this drug.

“Makaila. 16 forever“reads one of them.

The blue pills found in the bed of this exceptional student and “cheerleader” turned out to be 100% fentanyl. Police are investigating, but no arrests have been made so far.

The DEA launched a campaign called last year “A pill can kill” raise awareness of the dangers of fentanyl.

There are also efforts across the country to be made naloxone, drug that can reverse overdose of opiates, more accessible.

Shannon created a foundation in Makayla’s name to help prevent tragedies like her daughter’s. It is her way of dealing with grief.

ap