Fentanyl Kills Eight Out of Ten Adolescents Dying from Overdoses

Fentanyl pills masquerading as pharmaceutical products contribute to the intolerable number of adolescents we are losing to drug overdoses.

It’s painful when anyone dies from a drug overdose. But when the person losing their life is a young person with their whole life ahead of them, the pain seems greater. It’s harder on the family and perhaps even on society when we lose our bright leaders, teachers, and mothers and fathers of the future.

These days, it is far too easy to die from an overdose of fentanyl. Tragically, we are now losing too many of our adolescents to this drug. For any person who has not yet developed a tolerance to an opioid, only two milligrams of fentanyl is a fatal dose. That’s about the same as a few grains of salt. That’s how incredibly powerful fentanyl is.

A teen or young adult who feels down about life or who wants to experiment with drugs may go to someone in their community that supplies his friends with drugs. Maybe he asks for some Xanax or Adderall or the painkiller oxycodone, thinking that pills are a safer product than heroin or methamphetamine. There’s a very good chance that the pills he receives will contain fentanyl instead of any product manufactured by a pharmaceutical company.

Once this young person has those pills in hand, he is at terrible risk of death. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 81% of drug overdose deaths among adolescents ages 10 through 19 were caused by fentanyl.¹

Fentanyl is especially hard on our young men. While both young men and young women die from drug overdoses, 70% of those dying between the ages of 15 and 24 are male.¹

A Slight Decrease in Overdose Deaths Helps, But Not Much

In April 2021, the total number of overdose deaths surpassed the 100,000 per year mark for the first time. By August 2023, the number of deaths topped out at 113,315 for the prior twelve months.² Then the number of Americans dying began to decrease slightly. In March 2024, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that 103,000 Americans lost their lives in the prior twelve-month period.

The deadly contribution of fentanyl to this desperate situation becomes clearer when the effects of different opioid drugs are compared side by side.²

• Total number of overdose deaths in a twelve-month period as of March 2024: 103,451
• Number dying from any opioid: 77,304
• Number dying from fentanyl: 70,972
• Number dying from prescription opioids: 9,788
• Number dying from heroin: 3,740
  (Overdose deaths may involve more than one opioid drug.)

It’s obvious that fentanyl is the most serious drug problem in America. This is the drug killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.

Years of Life Lost and What It Means

When researchers want to determine how dangerous a health-related problem is, they may calculate the Years of Life Lost to describe that risky activity. The younger a person is when they lose their life, the higher the Years of Life Lost figure will be. A 2023 study³ examined the number of years of life lost by adolescents (ages 10–19) between 2016 and 2020 due to unintentional drug overdoses.

Here are some key facts from this study.

• Between 2016 and 2019, the number of Years of Life Lost (YLL) was fairly stable. The next year, however, the YLL abruptly doubled.
• The biggest contributor to this loss was illicitly manufactured fentanyl, which was responsible for 81% of these deaths. In YLL terms, fentanyl caused the loss of 68,356 years. For comparison, in 2019, fentanyl caused only 26,628 YLL.
• More than twice as many young men lost the remaining years of their lives as did females. In 2020, male adolescents experienced 59,275 YLL compared to females losing 24,905.
• The group with the highest YLL was 19-year-old males. In 2019, the number of YLL for this group was only 12,358. In 2020, the YLL for this group rose to 24,560.
• Even more tragically, the age group with the greatest increase in YLL was 13-year-old males. This group experienced a 600% rise in YLL, from 64 to 448. This statistic indicates that in 2019, there was one overdose death among 13-year-olds, resulting in the loss of 64 years of life in one person. When the YLL rose to 448, this indicates that seven 13-year-old children lost their lives in 2020.

The truth is unavoidable. Fentanyl is destroying far too many of America’s children.

A Little Background on Fentanyl

Until 2014, almost all the fentanyl being abused and addicting people was manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Criminal cartels recognized the profits that could be made from manufacturing this drug in clandestine labs located overseas. First, finished fentanyl began to be shipped from overseas in small packages to drug dealers in America. Then criminal organizations on this side of the ocean got involved. They began to receive huge shipments of the chemicals needed to make fentanyl in new labs set up for this purpose.⁴

Once the drug was ready for sale, it was trafficked into the U.S. using the existing trafficking channels run by these organizations.

In the twelve months leading up to January 2015, there were 48,126 total drug overdose deaths (including all types of drugs). By April 2021², America’s losses more than doubled.

However, losses due to heroin, methadone, and prescription opioids dropped. Fentanyl losses climbed and climbed until they accounted for approximately 68% of all overdose deaths in the twelve-month period ending April 2024.

Two Key Facts About Fentanyl

First, fentanyl is not a single drug. It is a family of chemically similar drugs. There are dozens of these drugs. The most common types being trafficked for abuse are para-fluorofentanyl, acetyl fentanyl, fluorofentanyl, despropionyl fentanyl, and carfentanil. Carfentanil is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine and is used by veterinarians to sedate large wild animals.⁵

The second key fact is that a person seeking drugs to abuse will very often and unknowingly receive fentanyl. It may be mixed in with heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, or other drugs. As mentioned earlier, it is very frequently pressed into pills that look just like real pills like oxycodone, Xanax, Adderall, or other pharmaceutical products.

All three of these types of pills and others are being manufactured in counterfeit form by drug dealers and traffickers. By October of 2024, more than 47 million fake pills containing fentanyl had been seized by law enforcement that year. Seven out of ten of these pills contained a potentially fatal dose of the drug.[2][3]

It may only take one slip-up. One mistake. One night of poor judgment for a teen or young adult to lose their life.

Young people may think that it is safer to experiment with or abuse a pill because it is supposedly made by a pharmaceutical company. If it is loaded with a fatal dose of fentanyl, then the rest of their dreams may be crushed, along with the dreams of their family.

Keeping Our Youth Safe

It may be obvious to you by now that the only safety there is for our youth is in remaining drug-free. Achieving this goal is not easy for a parent, guardian, grandparent, or other person responsible for young lives. Perhaps sharing these facts about fentanyl can help steer youth away from drugs and toward a productive, sober, and enjoyable life.

Once a person becomes addicted, it is necessary to find an effective rehab and get them to start reclaiming their life. People do recover from addiction. It is not an easy journey, but the persistent support of family and close friends is an important part of recovery.

Sources:

Karen

After a few years working at the Narconon center in Oklahoma, Karen has been researching drug trends around the world and writing reports and articles on addiction and recovery for nine years.
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