Thread by @jeppdx

>12,000 Americans under 30 died of drug overdoses & poisonings in 2019; ~8k involved fentanyl. We don’t know how many <30 died in 2020 with drug death +30% & fentanyl +54% but I have an example in CA. Note that US COVID deaths for these ages is ~3500 @SongforCharlie (1)

https://twitter.com/nabp/status/1430962016752185350

We don’t know how many youngers were impacted in 2020 cuz the data are still provisional and don’t have age group. But it’s likely that if we just grew youth(ages 15-24)death by the total rates, it will be ugly. Historically youth track lower than total pop in drug deaths. (2)

Fentanyl involvement for all & for youth swamp all other drugs. An insidious aspect of illicit fentanyl, besides a strength that prevents safe dose & an unlimited supply, is that it is sold in fake pills. Youth purchase what they think is ‘safe’ pharma online and get fentanyl(3)

Because of this fake pill aspect and because youth are less likely to pursue obvious harder drugs because of the education and warnings they have received, they are disproportionately impacted by fentanyl. They have not been educated about fentapills…yet (4)

In fact some ages are incredibly impacted by fentapills. It is highly unlikely that this many more 15 & 16 year olds are struggling with addiction and dependency issues than other ages; instead they are some of the victims of fake pills, bought online &filled with fentanyl (5)

In states with high fentanyl death growth in 2020 it appears that youth are being swept up in the fentanyl tide as it sold to them as something else like Oxy or Perc or Xanax. We now can start to see some state level data on youth. California example follows (6)

Using California health data for 2020 we can see how their ~+140% fentanyl death growth is translating into youth death multiplier and driving the youth death rate to explode a 20 year trend; now tracking to exceed total population drug death (7)

California is similar to the US but also has a serious Meth problem. CA lost ~9k people to drugs in 2020. Fentanyl was in 45% of those deaths, while Meth was in 55%. (Note that drug deaths can include multiple drugs) (8)

But when you look at youth data it’s clear they are more impacted by fentanyl than Meth. ~1000 CA Youth death from drugs +80% in 2020 fentanyl +138% involved in 80% of youth drug deaths. In fact ~40% of all youth injury death in CA including guns, cars, etc involved fentanyl. (9)

Fentanyl hits youth harder than Meth because they don’t understand the risks.They think they are taking 1 Oxy or Perc which doesn’t kill you. Fentapills kill. Deeper: almost 300 CA teenagers 15-19 died from drug induced causes(+145% v 2019) and 86% of those included fentanyl(10)

Deeper still: 74 kids in LA between 15-19 died from drugs in 2020 (up from 29 in 2020, +155%) 63 of these involved fentanyl(up from 23, +174%). Fentanyl is killing youth at almost 10x the rate Meth is. Again, assume many of these kids were not addicted or had dependence.(11)

It is astonishing that LA has no known program to educate youth on this danger. Education on risks of opioid prescriptions, Meth, etc and info about Narcan will NOT change this trend. We must warn the kids EXPLICITLY about dangers of fake pills filled with fentanyl. (12)

GA & CO also have youth level data that matches CA: youth drug death outpacing state by 2x, driven by fentanyl. Addiction & dependency issues are real and driving even more death.But the simple action of warning the kids is easy; many of these deaths are quickly preventable. (13)

This isnt about debunked myths of dying from touching fentanyl. Nor is it about legalization, nor drug wars. All those are worthy topics, but I hope we can all agree that we should warn the kids of these new risks now. (14) @SongforCharlie

For those who think this is about ‘deserved’ I say all lives lost to drugs and those who were dependent /addicted *matter*. I also ask you to further consider the judgement you are making of those who made a bad choice but didn’t understand death to be possible outcome.(15)

Parents: Visit @SongforCharlie to learn how to warn youth in your family/community including in schools. Others in the drug debates, I implore you make room for this messaging to at least protect our most vulnerable population whilst engaged in the other debates. (16)

We may have had 5,000 deaths of age 15-24 with fentanyl involved in 2020, probably more, when it’s all counted. Warn the kids! These videos are easy to share. There are also lesson plans for schools, back to school fliers, fact sheets, etc. (16) songforcharlie.org/real-talk-abou…

Sources: wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr…. skylab.cdph.ca.gov/ODdash/. cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr…. songforcharlie.org/resources

Disclaimers: I am not an expert or professional in this topic. I lost a child to a fentapill. I have a close family member who works for @SongforCharlie. My political views in general or on drugs are irrelevant to the matter at hand: WARN THE KIDS! (End)

Some stories: kxan.com/investigations…. koaa.com/news/covering-…. oregonlive.com/health/2021/05…. prnewswire.com/news-releases/…. wsaz.com/2021/08/26/dan…

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