By Patricia Tolson
Recent data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) revealed that, while reported cases of illegal drug use among adolescents in 2023 remain below pre-pandemic levels, the rate of deaths due to drug overdose has risen.
The Dec. 13 press release revealed the percentage of adolescents admitting to using illegal substances in 2023—10.9 percent of eighth graders, 19.8 percent of tenth graders, and 31.2 percent of twelfth graders—remained below levels seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, according to the latest results from the Monitoring the Future Survey conducted by the NIDA.
A March 2023 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics analyzed data on deaths attributed to poisonings from 40 states, which participated in the National Fatality Review-Case Reporting System. The children in the study ranged in age from infant to five years old, and the time frame was between 2005 to 2018.
Of the 731 poisoning-related fatalities in children that had been reported, 308 (42.1 percent) occurred among children ranging from infants to those aged 1 year. The majority of those fatalities, 444 (65.1 percent) occurred in the child’s home. In addition, 97 children “had an open child protective services case at the time of death,” and 203 of the children were in the custody of someone “other than the biological parent.”
The most common drug contributing to their deaths, 47.3 percent, was opioids.
However, while 2023 data compiled by NIDA continued to show the steady or declining use of illicit drugs among America’s adolescents, research data released in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April 2022 showed there was a dramatic increase in the number of adolescent overdose deaths between 2010 to 2021, which remained high well into 2022, as confirmed by a NIDA analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Census.
The NIDA attributes the rise in overdose deaths among adolescents primarily to illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is deadly in extremely small doses.
In a statement issued by email to The Epoch Times, Rachel Evans, press office chief for NIDA and the National Institutes of Health, reiterated a key point confirmed by the survey.
“Taken together, these data suggest that while drug use is not becoming more common among young people, it is becoming more dangerous,” she quoted from the NIDA press release.
‘A Massively Vulnerable Population’
Dr. Sheila Furey, who specializes in child and adolescent psychiatry, confirmed to The Epoch Times, “There is a significant increase in overdoses among children.”
“It reflects a very systemic problem in that we have an open border, northern and southern, that is completely porous for drugs to pour into this country,” she said further, adding that many families have also become destabilized, “which makes them vulnerable.”
In many ways, she said, we live in a culture “that promotes a quick fix to make things better, be it emotional pain or physical pain,” and some people “naively” turn to drugs for self-comfort.
In the opinion of Dr. Furey, “We have a massively vulnerable population.” She attributes the vulnerability of today’s families to the unhealthy amount of time children and their parents spend in the artificial worlds found on their computers and cell phones. This detachment leaves them “lacking human contact and lacking understanding of real relationships” because everything is based on a screen image or a text message.
“What have we lost in our family relationships because we are sucked into relationships that don’t give us the real connection we need as human beings, to hug someone, to hold their hand?” she asked rhetorically.
In an effort to find a connection, she said, kids turn to drugs, and with the easy accessibility of these drugs in schools and homes, they ignore the risks of overdose, “naively thinking it’s not going to happen to them.”
Further, with the increasing incidence of fentanyl-laced drugs, those drugs may not be what they appear.
‘It’s Criminal’
Healthcare policy commentator Peter Pitts attributes America’s opioid crisis to the lack of funding for addiction treatment.
Mr. Pitts is a visiting professor at the University of Paris School of Medicine, and the president and co-founder of the New York-based Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization with a mission of advancing “the discussion and development of patient-centered health care.”
“What’s clearly true, and was true since before COVID and was magnified by the pandemic, is the various structural changes our society has gone through,” Mr. Pitts said. “There is not enough funding for rehab centers to address opioid addiction, and that’s also exacerbated by the lack of a settlement with the Sackler family.”
The Sackler family is the owner of Purdue Pharma, manufacturers of OxyContin, an opioid that is known to be highly addictive. The case involving the Sackler family is now before the Supreme Court.
Following a public health crisis and accusations of deceptive marketing, thousands of lawsuits sought trillions of dollars against Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers.
According to an Oct. 21, 2020 press release, “the Department of Justice announced a global resolution of its criminal and civil investigations into the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma LP (Purdue), and a civil resolution of its civil investigation into individual shareholders from the Sackler family.”
On Dec. 4, after years of litigation, the Associated Press reported that the justices seemed to struggle with how to resolve the continued conflict in the nationwide settlement.
The agreement, which had been debated and settled between the victims and state and local governments, would have the Sacklers surrender ownership of Purdue Pharma and contribute up to $6 billion for the treatment of opioid addiction. The family would, however, also retain billions.
While hesitant to dissolve the agreement settled in bankruptcy court, the justices are also reluctant to have it perceived that they are letting the family off easily.
According to Forbes, the net worth of the Sackler family was around $10.8 billion in 2020, after multiple settlements.
“When you’re talking about billions of dollars that could be mainstreamed into opioid addiction treatment facilities, it’s criminal in my mind,” Mr. Pitts said. “People who were in treatment before COVID stopped going. Staff members have left. Centers have closed and that was all predictable. So when someone asks what the unintended consequences of this legal settlement not being finalized, this is a completely predictable consequence and unfortunately, it has come to fruition.”
One of the first things Mr. Pitts said people need to understand is that whenever they see a documentary or read about opioid addiction in adolescents they are told the story about the student-athlete or the cheerleader who started out on his or her journey toward addiction by taking prescription opioids for an injury.
“What people don’t realize is that the percentage of people who are addicted to opioids have never received a prescription in the first place is around 90 percent,” he explained, adding that “nine out of 10 people who are addicted to opioids never got a prescription in the first place.”
He also suggested that opioid addiction is a problem being perpetuated by “the junkie community.”
“What drives opioid addiction is criminal activity. Full stop. The volume of opioid tablets available in this country is just beyond belief, overprescribed regularly by people who can legally do that, and widely available in the black market to anybody who wants it.”
‘No Excuse’
Mr. Pitts is most disturbed by the way criminals in the drug trade are marketing and selling opioids to children, often in colorful shapes and in familiar forms like gummy bears.
“That’s just disgusting,” Mr. Pitts asserted. “These people should be taken out and hung up by their thumbs, quite frankly. Anybody who’s willing to sell addictive drugs to young kids should be punished in the most severe ways. There’s no excuse for that.”
On Dec. 11, three students from Lauderdale Lakes Middle School in Broward County, Florida were rushed to HCA Florida Northwest Hospital in Margate and Broward Health in Fort Lauderdale and treated for possible drug overdose.
According to Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Michael Kane, the students “were demonstrating signs of overdose.” However, the type of substance ingested by the students was not immediately revealed.
Lauderdale Lakes Middle School, part of the Broward County School District, teaches grades six through eight, meaning the students were between the ages of 11 and 14.
In response to an email inquiry by The Epoch Times, Keyla Concepcion, director of Mass Media and Community Relations for Broward County Public Schools, confirmed that “three students at Lauderdale Lakes Middle School were transported to the hospital as a precaution on Monday, December 11, after they ingested edibles with an unknown substance.”
“Parents and guardians are reminded to speak with their children about the importance of positive decision-making and maintaining a drug-free and healthy environment, stressing the potential risks associated with sharing unpackaged and unfamiliar food items,” Ms. Concepcion stated further. “The school administration is working with law enforcement to investigate the incident. Students who knowingly consume and/or transmit illicit substances on campus can be subject to disciplinary consequences as outlined in The Code Book for Student Conduct (Policy 5090). We defer to the Broward Sheriff’s Office for any additional information.”
In early December, Virginia’s WUSA9 reported that a female teen from Fairfax County died of a fentanyl-related overdose.
Arlington’s ARLnow reported in October that two teenage boys faced a battery of charges after two female students overdosed on fentanyl at Wakefield High School. The distribution of the drug occurred on school property.
In October and early November, nine students from Park View High School in Loudon County, Virginia overdosed on what was believed to be fentanyl in less than a month. Four of the incidents occurred on school property, prompting Gov. Glen Youngkin to issue an executive order directing Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons and the Virginia Department of Education “to take immediate action regarding overdoses in Virginia’s public schools.”
In a joint letter dated Oct. 30, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona encouraged every school in the United States to stock naloxone.
As defined by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, naloxone is “a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose.”
