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What happens when a drug 50 times more powerful than Heroin and Morphine is taken by Adults and Teens? Fentanyl isn’t just another pain killer,it’s an extremely powerful synthetic opioid and it is also one of the hardest drugs to detect due to its lack of smell, taste, and white color. So how do you know if what you’re taking is laced with it or not? The scary thing is that you don’t. In the United States alone, during the year 2023, it had a total of 72,776 deaths recorded involving synthetic opioids and 92% of drug overdoses were traced to Fentanyl. In America, one of the most frequently shown images in Health and Physical Education classes is the picture of the lethal dose of Fentanyl balancing on the tip of a pencil. This can be extremely dangerous as it is a medical drug and it is not intended to be used otherwise. 

Fentanyl is mostly used to lace other drugs like pain killers or pills. There are physical, mental, and social effects that using drugs can have on a person. Physical effects consist of overdosing, addiction, organ damage, and death. Drugs cause damage to your mental health as well resulting in depression, anxiety, memory loss, and possible psychosis. Social health is important because being social can help you thrive in society and coming together with friends, family and your community makes life feel less lonely. Drugs can cause a decline in your social life because of broken relationships, school issues, and you can get into legal trouble. 

Misuse of these drugs like illegal use, overdose of prescription, peer-pressure, or stress can end in irreversible damage. If you were to be at risk of any of these things and you received medical attention quickly, they would give you something called Narcan (Naloxone). This is a life-saving medication used to rapidly reverse opioid overdose by blocking the effects of opioids on the brain. A good example of this is in Perry Meridian Highschool(Indiana) after using a THC vape pen that was laced with “Fent”, a young male student overdosed. It required two doses of narcan by school staff to keep him alive. Two younger students of the ages 14 and 15 were arrested for selling the laced vape. It took 8 Miligrams to cancel out 2 Miligrams of Fentanyl.