Fighting The Fentanyl Crisis That Took Her Son
Dr. Beth Weinstock is promoting a harm-reduction approach to the fentanyl crisis.
Fentanyl is now the number one cause of death in 18-45 year-olds in the US, claiming more lives than car crashes and gun violence combined. This synthetic opioid is often described as 50 times stronger than heroin and 80-100 times stronger than morphine.
Because it is so potent, and also cheap to manufacture, drug dealers are adding fentanyl to other drugs, leading many to ingest it unintentionally. Just two milligrams of fentanyl - about the size of a sea salt flake - can be lethal.
Dr. Beth Weinstock lost her son last year after he ingested an unknown substance that contained both Kratom, a legal herbal supplement, and fentanyl. He was 20 years old, now a statistic in the greatest public health crisis of his generation
If you order chicken in a restaurant and it has salmonella in it, you didn’t “overdose” on chicken. You actually were poisoned… We’re not using the right words. Until we get the right language, we can’t get rid of stigma. My son Eli was not struggling with addiction. He tried something he thought was something else, and it was poisoned with fentanyl. This happens to so many kids and young people these days. It’s staggering how many times people think they’re trying one thing and it’s poisoned with fentanyl.
In the wake of grief and disbelief, Dr. Weinstock and her daughter Olivia set out to help prevent more young people from dying due to accidental Fentanyl ingestion. They founded an organization, BirdieLight, to create awareness and provide life-saving tools for young people.
Topics covered:
The magnitude of the fentanyl crisis in the US, and why fentanyl deaths are rising
Why “overdose” is not the appropriate term for what’s happening
How fentanyl test strips and other harm-reduction tools work
Why we need to decriminalize fentanyl test strips
Helping others in the wake of grief
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