An overdose prevention nonprofit is warning visitors to Orlando this weekend to remain vigilant about their use of party drugs, especially at the three-day Electrical Daisy Carnival, following the detection of a highly-potent tranquilizer in the local street drug supply.
According to Project Overdose, the powerful synthetic opioid carfentanil has been detected in a range of counterfeit pills and powders throughout Orange and Seminole counties.
Considered roughly 100 times more potent than the synthetic opioid fentanyl, carfentanil has been implicated in a rising number of overdose deaths in recent years. It’s a powerful central nervous system depressant, originally manufactured as an elephant tranquilizer, that can be deadly for humans if even a small amount is ingested.
“Even by fentanyl standards, carfentanil is extraordinarily lethal,” said Andrae Bailey, founder and CEO of Project Overdose. “The data show it’s circulating again in the Orlando area, and it’s probably not confined to opioids.”
Although it’s unclear which drugs carfentanil is specifically being mixed into, Bailey told Orlando Weekly that it’s most likely to be mixed into cocaine, meth, or counterfeit pills and powders sold to partygoers as MDMA or prescription painkillers. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, just 0.2 milligrams of carfentanil can be lethal. “A single dose can end a life in seconds,” Bailey warned.
Although drug overdose deaths last year declined in Florida and across the U.S., powerful fentanyl analogs like carfentanil have remained at the center of the nation’s overdose crisis.
According to provisional data, Florida saw 5,364 overdose deaths in 2024, down from 8,227 fatal overdoses in 2020. Nationwide, more than 82,000 people died of fatal drug overdose last year, down from over 107,000 U.S. overdose deaths in 2022.
“We are all about harm reduction and trying to keep people safe,” said Bailey, adding, “We’re kidding ourselves if we think that there’s not going to be drugs at EDC.”
Nonetheless, he said, “We think they [EDC attendees] should know that there’s a wave just recently of incredibly dangerous carfentanil, and that people need to be more alert than ever.” If you’re taking drugs and you’re not sure what’s in them, “you could be risking your life.”
“People need to be more alert than ever”
Andrae Bailey, CEO and founder of Project Overdose
Dr. Kendall Cortelyou, a global health management professor at the University of Central Florida and national data director for Project Overdose, said prevention and preparedness “could save lives this weekend.”
Orlando’s three-day EDC, running from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9, is expected to welcome an anticipated 300,000 attendees at Tinker Field outside Camping World Stadium. The electronic music festival is known for its party culture, and although it has a stated zero-tolerance policy for drug use or paraphernalia, there’s little doubt in Bailey’s mind that drugs will be present.
Orange County’s Emergency Medical Services, in collaboration with law enforcement agencies and the fire department, says first responders are “fully prepared” to attend to urgent medical needs this weekend, in light of prospective dangers.
“This event is something we’re ready for every year,” Dr. Christian Zuver, medical director for Orange County’s EMS System, said in a statement. “OMD and the city of Orlando works closely with our local hospital systems to maintain consistent communication and functionality, ensuring all first responders and medical professionals are ready for any situation.”
A county spokesperson confirmed that several vendors at EDC will have Narcan, an opioid overdose reversal medication, to hand out to attendees. There will also be educational materials available to demonstrate how to administer Narcan (a brand name for naloxone, an opioid antagonist) in the event of a suspected overdose.
Signs of an overdose involving carfentanil can include slowed or stopped breathing, loss of consciousness, gurgling noises, clammy skin, pinpoint pupils, and disorientation.
Fentanyl test strips, a tool recently legalized in Florida that can be used for detecting the synthetic opioid fentanyl in drugs, can “sometimes” detect its stronger analog carfentanil, too, said Bailey. However, “Fentanyl test strips are very hit or miss,” he admitted, especially if you’re trying to test a pill rather than a powdered substance.
Carfentanil has reportedly been detected in at least 37 states, according to the DEA, although Bailey said the drug “has been pretty rare over the years in Central Florida.” To see it moving back into the community is “definitely” cause for alarm, he said.
The drug was specifically detected by Project Overdose through a new drug tracking system the nonprofit launched last week, powered by artificial intelligence. The system gathers information about drugs in the community, down to the zip code, through anonymized urine tests (i.e. there’s no personal, identifiable information attached).
“This isn’t just speculation. It’s based on real laboratory data,” said Dr. Cortelyou.
Dr. Zuver, with Orange County EMS, said that since the event is within city of Orlando limits, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics with the Orlando Fire Department “will be on site to provide immediate medical care.”
“The event promoter will staff a field emergency department with advanced capabilities, and OMD physicians will be present throughout the weekend with access to additional medications and advanced airway management tools,” he added.
BOSTON — MBTA officials are pouring cold water on a legislative push to make the opioid overdose reversing drug naloxone available at subway stations, citing a lack of proper staff and a shortage of funding.
The T recently wrapped up a federally funded pilot project that installed 15 kiosks with doses of the medicine – also known by its brand name, Narcan – at several Red Line stations to help reduce fatal drug overdoses.
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In this file photo from 2017, Arlington police display crystal methamphetamine they confiscated during an arrest. Deaths from stimulant overdoses in Texas increased fourfold from 2013 to 2023.
Arlington Police Department
The overdose death rate from stimulant drugs in Texas has increased by more than fourfold in the last 10 years, according to data from Texas Vital Statistics.
In 2023, 11 people died from stimulant overdoses per 100,000 Texans, up from 2.6 in 2013, according to Texas Vital Statistics. Stimulants include drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine, and prescription stimulants such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder medications.
“We have been seeing a noticeable rise in stimulant-involved overdoses,” said Becky DeVine, director of special projects at Recovery Resource Council.
There are multiple reasons why the stimulant overdose death rate has increased. First, the meth being sold in the U.S. is a lot stronger than it used to be, said Katie Harris, a drug policy expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. And in recent years, fentanyl has gotten less potent.
“When you look at stimulants, the number of deaths around the country continues to rise, and that’s driven by a few different things,” said Dr. Joe Friedman, a physician and researcher who has researched polysubstance overdose death. “One of them is the expansion of methamphetamine into almost everywhere in the country.”
Stimulants are also difficult to counteract because, unlike opioids, there are no approved medications to treat stimulant use disorder, and there is no naloxone equivalent that can reverse a stimulant overdose. Opioid use disorder can be treated with buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone.
“In many ways it’s a more difficult drug to combat use of, even though the risks around overdose are a bit different than they are for opioids,” Harris said.
To treat stimulant misuse, the best evidence is for contingency management, Friedman said. That is when you get paid small amounts of money every time you have a clean drug screen.
People often begin using stimulants because they need to stay awake at night, Harris said, if they’re homeless or if their jobs require long hours.
Drug trends come and go like any other trend, DeVine said. And stimulants like methamphetamine are typically quite cheap, she added.
“We can’t focus on just one drug,” Harris said. “We can’t just focus on fentanyl because there’s always something else around the corner.”
Ciara McCarthy covers health and wellness as part of the Star-Telegram’s Crossroads Lab. She came to Fort Worth after three years in Victoria, Texas, where she worked at the Victoria Advocate. Ciara is focused on equipping people and communities with information they need to make decisions about their lives and well-being. Please reach out with your questions about public health or the health care system. Email cmccarthy@star-telegram.com or call or text 817-203-4391.
The number of opioid-involved drug overdose deaths in 2023 decreased for the first time in five years.
Minnesota health officials say 54 people have died from suspected drug overdoses in just the month of August. That’s nearly two people per day.
The leading cause of those deaths was opioids like fentanyl, which killed an average of 1,000 people per year from 2021 to 2023.
A Minneapolis author hopes his personal story resonates with those battling an addiction that has silenced them.
That’s why he founded Generation Hope, a licensed peer recovery support organization that provides help to overcome addiction.
Abdirahman Warsame once felt alone in his fentanyl addiction. Fast forward six years, and he’s now using his voice through his new book, “Who Would You Be Without the Fear of Judgment?”
On Friday evening, in a packed room, he celebrated his book launch.
The book is part raw journal, part self-help guide. It’s for people not ready to walk into treatment, who are still scared and silent.
“It challenges the reader to envision a world where they weren’t afraid of what people thought of them,” Warsame said.
He doesn’t want the book to come off as preaching but to just reach the person who is ready to take an honest look at themselves, maybe for the first time.
“People look at addiction as the problem, but rather, there are a lot of underlying issues there,” Warsame said.
Warsame hopes that by opening this book, people will feel less alone and can take the step in their own recovery journey.
“I hope everybody watching this can take this as a testimony that your life can change tomorrow,” Warsame smiled.
Overdose deaths in Virginia fell 43% in one year. The head of addiction services at Inova Health System says while that’s encouraging, more needs to be done.
The number of drug overdose deaths in Virginia is down 43% in one year, according to the head of addiction services at Inova Health System. She said while the number is encouraging, more needs to be done to prevent people from dying.
Dr. Zeina Saliba, chief of addiction services at Inova Health System, said the availability of naloxone, or Narcan, “certainly has something to do with the decrease in overdose deaths,” in 2024.
Preliminary data provided by the Virginia Department of Health shows about 1,400 overdose deaths statewide in 2024, down 43% from 2023, with 79% involving fentanyl or similar synthetic opioids.
Saliba told WTOP that naloxone is an example of harm reduction: “It can be seen as a set of strategies or practices that ultimately decrease the harms that are associated with the use of substances.”
Other common harm reduction methods include needle or syringe exchange programs, fentanyl testing strips and supervised consumption sites.
To those people who question the practice of supporting people using illegal substances, Saliba said: “People who use substances deserve safety and dignity. … They’re not using drugs as some sort of moral failing.”
She offered the following analogy: “When we have patients who have diabetes, they might make some choices that are not in the best interest of their health,” Saliba said. “Yet, we don’t keep them from their insulin or other treatments.”
Citing a recent study, Inova said 53% of survey respondents had never heard of the term ‘harm reduction,’ but 92% agree that it saves lives.
“Awareness is strongest among Millennials (55%) and Gen Z (47%), suggesting the effectiveness of progressive, digital-first outreach,” according to an Inova news release.
Stigma prevents many from seeking help
Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents cite fear of exposure or stigma as a major barrier to care, according to Inova.
“This impacts communities and it impacts families,” said Saliba, referring to stigma. “So, there is a much wider reach than just the individual.”
Another barrier, according to the Inova survey, is that 75% of respondents believe they can solve their personal substance use on their own.
“There may be some who do that, but for a lot of people, having support from a professional and other people with lived-experience is really important, Saliba said.
And even if a substance user becomes comfortable with the idea of seeking care, Saliba said it’s important that “we remove the potential negative consequence,” which extends beyond the discomfort of acknowledging a substance use problem.
“If, in fact, someone coming to see me may result in their loss of job, or an increase in the cost of their health insurance, all of these factors are really important,” Saliba said. “Stigma is not just an idea by itself.”
This story previously aired July 30, 2016. It was updated on Aug. 30, 2025.
When he’s not out looking for the big wave, there’s a big story that has consumed Stephen Baxter, a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and a “48 Hours” consultant: the mysterious death of Google executive Forrest Hayes at the city’s sprawling marina.
Forrest Hayes
Forrest Hayes Memorial Site
“Forrest Hayes was … 51 years old. He lived in a pretty upper crust neighborhood,” Baxter told “48 Hours.” “He was a pretty high-powered guy and … obviously had a lot of assets; he lives in a $3 million house in Santa Cruz.”
In 2013, one of the boats docked in Santa Cruz Harbor was the majestic 46-foot-long yacht called “Escape.” It belonged to Hayes. Not surprisingly, the tech exec outfitted his boat with some of the most expensive tech gear out there — about $200,000 worth, including a sophisticated security system complete with high-def cameras.
Inside, Hayes spared no expense on creature comforts, including a leather ceiling and a $8,000 captain’s chair.
The Google executive’s death caught the attention of Michael Daly, an investigative reporter for The Daily Beast, in New York, and also a “48 Hours” consultant.
“I think … he was practical and imaginative at the same time,” Daly said. “Forrest Hayes started in his native Michigan … at the Ford Motor Company as a manager, he went to California for Sun Microsystems and he went on to Apple …”
Hayes then went on to Google for a high-paying job at their top-secret location, where impossible dreams are transformed into reality.
“He was hired … to work in Google X, which they call their ‘moonshot factory.’ As in, you know, the most extreme, wildest, imaginative, farthest reaching ideas they could have. You know, like Google glasses, self-driving cars,” Daly explained. “He was the guy who was actually gonna make some of these things happen.”
It’s a place so secretive, colleagues from Google X refused to divulge exactly what Hayes did there. To get away from the pressures at work, Forrest Hayes would head to the marina, and onto his prized possession.
“One of the larger boats in the harbor, I think that’s fair to say,” said Baxter.
What police would eventually discover was that the married father of five had a secret liaison. She was a young and exotic dark haired woman covered with very distinctive tattoos. And she would be the last person to see Forrest Hayes alive.
“On the night of November 22, 2013 … Forrest Hayes was on his yacht … and he didn’t come home that night. And his wife became concerned. She called the captain they retained for this yacht and he went and he got on the boat,” said Daly.
Hayes’ body was found lying in the main cabin. The captain immediately called 911, but surprisingly, it would take months before the Google executive’s death made headlines.
“There was — really no report of his death,” Baxter said. “Obviously, the police in this case were trying to keep that under wraps as they investigated.”
Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark has been on this case since day one.
“The media’s gonna want to know right off the bat. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Who’s responsible?’ ‘Is this a homicide?’ ‘Is this a murder?’ We didn’t have enough to really even put that out. We were busy building the case,” Clark told “48 Hours” correspondent Maureen Maher.
Building the case wasn’t easy despite some initial crime scene clues.
“There were two wine glasses there, both which appeared to have been used,” said Clark
Investigators zeroed in on Hayes’ cellphone, launching an exhaustive digital search. They made a stunning discovery. Hayes had a profile page on a dating website, called SeekingArrangement.com. It would be a critical clue in learning the identity of that mystery tattooed woman.
It was just a few days before Thanksgiving 2013. What happened that night was recorded by the boat’s video cameras. One camera in particular caught the very last moments of Hayes’ life in chilling detail.
“Initially, we were told that the video wasn’t available from that particular camera that actually showed the cabin of the boat. … there was indeed video that was uploaded to a cloud server. And the video from that camera was indeed available,” Clark explained. “That was one of those moments where you feel like, you know, it was 4th and 1. And you got a first down.
Actually, it took three months and a court order for detectives to get their hands on that video. When they did, it was explosive.
“That video was shocking to me,” said Clark.
“What do you see on this video?” Maher asked.
“Well, the video’s everything. The video is the case,” Clark replied.
Police have yet to release the video, but described in detail to “48 Hours” exactly what they say happened that night between the couple: essentially, it was a party for two — drugs included.
“They greet each other — a quick hug — just a quick embrace. You can see that they’re engaged in conversation. But there’s no audio,” Clark said. “… then, eventually, she — gets to the point where she starts to prepare drugs … for injection. We see her very clearly. She brought all of the equipment with her. She brought the drugs with her.”
As police would learn, the drug of choice that night was heroin.
“We see her prepare the syringe. We see her it looks like she’s injecting herself, but her back’s to the camera,” Clark explained. “He watches this happen. And then she eventually injects him.”
“Do you feel like, at any point when you’re watching the video, that this is a guy who is afraid and doesn’t want to do this?” Maher asked.
“I get the impression … he’s nervous. He’s uncertain. But he’s going along with it,” said Clark.
“And what happens then?” Maher asked.
“Almost immediately, he starts to go into distress,” Clark explained. “At some point, she comes to him. It looks like she tries to revive him a bit … by patting him on the face and talking to him, holding his head as he slumped forward on the chair.
“And you or I, if we found ourselves in that situation, would’ve been on the phone to 911, sayin’, ‘Oh, my gosh. Something terrible’s happened. We need help.’ And she does none of that,” Clark continued.
Instead, Clark says the video shows the woman trying to remove any evidence that she was ever there — wiping fingerprints and cleaning up her drug paraphernalia.
“While he’s slumped over on the floor?” Maker asked.
“While he’s on the floor,” Clark replied.
“She’s stepping over him?” Maher asked.
“She is literally walking around the cabin of the boat … stepping over him, grabbing her glass of wine, carrying it around the boat cabin with her,” said Clark.
Clark says that portion of the video with Hayes on the floor of the cabin goes on for seven minutes.
“And that’s seven minutes that emergency medical personnel could’ve been there could have done something and could have reacted to this situation to save Mr. Hayes’ life. But instead, she does nothing, nothing to call for help or to fix this. You know, and that’s the crux of the case,” Clark told Maher.
Alix Tichelman
diaz digital media
Armed with that video, police hit pay dirt. They were able to match the woman with those distinctive tattoos to a profile on the dating website Hayes had used. She was a 26-year-old aspiring model. Her name? Alix Tichelman.
WEB OF SECRETS
The wealthy Google executive found the exotic model in a somewhat secret world, where real names are rarely used.
Technically, Alix Tichelman and Forrest Hayes met in Las Vegas — not at an upscale casino or one of the fancy hotel lobby bars — but through an online website which is headquartered just a stone’s throw from the strip. But as “48 Hours” discovered, it’s not your typical dating website.
“What year did you start SeekingArrangement?” Maher asked the site’s CEO Brandon Wade.
“It was started in 2006 from a bedroom in San Francisco, actually,” he replied.
It may have the look and feel of a start-up, but with nearly four million members worldwide, this is big business.
“SeekingArrangement.com is — a sugar daddy dating website, so we match wealthy guys and girls looking to pamper and spoil. And, of course, younger men and women looking to meet those wealthy people,” Wade explained.
Wade, a boyish 43-year old, says he’s become a multi-millionaire from all the “arranging” he’s been doing.
“Is SeekingArrangement about arranging sexual relationships for money?” Maher asked.
“It is about finding romance and passion,” Wade replied. “I’m unapologetic about the fact that sex is involved in a romantic relationship. And money is involved in a romantic relationship. But that doesn’t make the romantic relationship prostitution.”
Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark, the point man in the Hayes death case, strongly disagrees.
“It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to take a look at that website and figure out exactly what was going on there,” he told Maher. “The titles of the individuals are Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies. You know, that’s — there’s no innocent connotation there behind any of that.”
“What is ‘Budget’? That’s what he’s willing to spend?” Maher asked Wade as they looked at the website.
“That’s his sort of lifestyle. So it could be going out for dinners, paying for that. Going on trips,” he explained.
“OK. So does a woman think you’re gonna spend $3,000 on me? A Sugar Baby thinks, ‘You’re gonna spend — $3,000 on me,’” Maher asked.
“Yeah, on the relationship,” Wade replied.
Wade is proud that his membership ranks include employees of leading Fortune 500 companies, including, he says, from Google.
“Is Forrest Hayes a typical client?” Maher asked Wade.
“I would say he is — an average client of ours,” he replied.
“Married tech executive looking for some sort of arrangement,” Maher commented.
“Yep. Forty percent of the guys are married,” said Wade.
It’s unknown if Hayes was fulfilling the “expectations” of any Sugar Babies’ lifestyle requests, which range from a $1,000 to over $10,000 in monthly Sugar Daddy “gifts.”
“Can you tell us anything about Alix Tichelman’s profile on SeekingArrangement?” Maher asked Wade.
“Well, the only thing I can say is that it looked like any other normal profile, so it was approved. And — there was no indication that she was soliciting money for sex. At least not with that profile,” he replied.
After Hayes’death, investigators began tracking Alix Tichelman on social media. Fearing she might leave town, they hatched a plan to catch her using SeekingArrangement.com.
“When she posted on Facebook something to the effect of — I plan to go back to Georgia — that’s when they decided to really go in and pursue her on the same website, just the way Forrest had, and pose as a john and lure her back to Santa Cruz,” reporter Stephen Baxter explained.
“We started seeing chatter from her that indicated she was either gonna move out of the country or out of the state,” said Clark.
“There’s now a clock on this ’cause she’s about to head South,” reporter Michael Daly explained. “So, they do kind of a classic sting.”
“We sold out our detective and made him set up a profile — under a different identity and made up a whole story about him. We then posted that out there and we reached out to Alix Tichelman through SeekingArrangements,” said Clark.
Code-named “Sebastian,” that detective began emailing and texting with Tichelman, hoping for a rendezvous.
“Eventually, we convinced her to come down and meet with us for an agreed-upon … arrangement for sex, for prostitution, and for a sum of money,” said Clark.
“Police said … they deposited some money — several hundred dollars into her bank account with a promise of … at least $1,000 upon arrival and everything else,” Baxter explained.
“This did not appear to you that this was the first time she had negotiated such a situation?” Maher asked Clark.
“No. In fact … she kinda called us out, called us a cheapskate. Told us that, you know, many of her clients pay twice that,” he replied.
Eight months after the death of Forrest Hayes, Alix Tichelman once again showed up in Santa Cruz County, this time at a secluded resort. Once again, she came with heroin in her bag expecting to hook up with the Sugar Daddy from SeekingArrangement. And once again, it did not go as planned.
“When you said, ‘We’re the cops. And we’re the ones you’ve been communicating with,’ what was her reaction?” Maher asked Clark.
“Oh, she — she cried,” he replied. “… that’s when we saw panic.”
Alix Tichelman booking photo
Santa Cruz Police Dept.
Alix Tichelman, 26, was stunned. Police arrested her for prostitution and charged her in the death of Forrest Hayes.
“…this was a crime. This wasn’t just some accident gone awry,” Clark said.
Or was it? What happened that night, says Tichelman’s defenders, is a lot more complicated.
WHO IS ALIX TICHELMAN?
Perhaps no one was more surprised by the arrest of AlixTichelman than Chad Cornell. The construction worker with a passion for writing and playing music was in love with her.
“For me, I mean, she was somebody completely different,” Cornell told Maureen Maher. “When I first saw her, I couldn’t help but to say something … She has a very darker style. And I always thought she was really beautiful. And almost like, you know, the Angelina Jolie kinda look.”
Alix Tichelman and Chad Cornell
Cornell had no idea how dark her life really was.
“Did you believe she was falling in love with you?” Maher asked Cornell.
“I did,” he replied.
Cornell thought his girlfriend was a model — there were countless images, a swimsuit commercial, and a makeup tutorial she did online.
And as far as he could tell, she was always answering modeling calls.
“She’d get all dolled up and go to a photo shoot,” Cornell said. “…she’d usually make about $1,000 or so when she’d go out to these modeling shoots.”
So imagine how he felt to learn months later that his beloved girlfriend was now being accused of doing something altogether different for all that money.
“I got a text with the news link on it … and kind just fell over on the couch in shock,” Cornell said.
The woman he once thought he’d spend the rest of his life with was now not only charged with prostitution — but also in the death of Google executive Forrest Hayes.
“What are you thinking? This is a woman you were in love with,” Maher commented.
“Yeah, I mean obviously, I was devastated you know. I turned white,” said Cornell.
As the news sank in, to his complete amazement, Cornell realized that just hours before Alix Tichelman met up with Forrest Hayes on that fateful night, she was with him.
“We were hanging out that day actually. She told me that some of her long-time high school friends were in Santa Cruz, and had a boat and she had planned to go hang out with them,” he explained. “Later that night, she actually woke me outta bed with a phone call. She’s you know really frantic on the phone. She sounded very upset.”
“What was she talking about?” Maher asked.
“She talked about how her friends had started doing heroin and a bunch of hardcore drugs on the boat and made her uncomfortable. And that she had to leave,” Cornell replied.
“But you believed on that call that she sounded genuinely upset?” Maher asked.
“Crying, sniffling. I mean upset upset,” said Cornell.
Because the truth, he now knows, was much worse. And it’s left him wondering whether he ever really knew who Alix was.
“Who is Alix Tichelman, right? Who is she?” said reporter Michael Daly.
Daly did what police investigators did, and using the tools of Hayes’ employer, he ‘Googled’ her.
“This, the police discovered, was Alix Tichelman’s Twitter account,” he explained, navigating through the profile AKKennedyxx.
“One x short of triple x,” Daly said of her Twitter handle. ‘Baddest bitch, model, stylist, hustler, exotic dancer.’ Those are her words. These are the pictures to go with the words.”
Twitter
“This has the charming inscription, ‘To death do us part,” Daly said of a photo Tichelman showing off a tattoo on her arm that was posted to the account. “You might start believing less in coincidence on seeing that.”
But to Daly, Tichelman’s postings looked more like someone trying to create an image rather than someone obsessed with killing. That’s because he came across this post:
“My beautiful mother and I out for lunch. *no makeup face*”
“I mean this is a young woman who wants to be with mom,” Daly commented of the tweet, which included a photo of Tichelman and her mother smiling.
Tichelman posted it just months before her arrest for Forrest’s death
“It makes you think there’s a fuller story,” said Daly.
So how did it come to this? Childhood pictures show a cute blonde tomboy who appeared to have all the advantages in life growing up with her sister, Monica, who would become an investment counselor, her mother, Leslie Ann, and her father, Bart, a CEO for a technology company and a pretty good poker player.
“And he at one point found himself playing with some of the best poker players in the world and he won like $400,000,” said Daly.
Alix Tichelman spent her early teens in an Atlanta suburb where she played sports and won writing awards.
“Her friends say that she’s very smart, very deep,” said Daly.
But also very troubled.
“Her experiences with boys were not always happy ones,” Daly explained. “She had eating disorders … she was taking drugs.”
Desperate, her parents went looking for help and located a school that they thought would give her special attention.
“So they found this place called the Hyde School in Maine,” Daly continued.
Megan was also a student at the Hyde School, where Tichelman spent a few months.
“I can feel, like, pressure in my chest. It’s nerve-wracking,” she said driving to the school.
Megan asked “48 Hours” not to use her last name, but agreed to travel back to the Hyde School campus.
“I want people to see this very pivotal part of her life, that I feel, probably affected her at a very … huge point in her development … and why she is who she is,” she said.
“Do you remember when you first met Alix, do you happen to remember the very first time you saw her?” Maher asked.
“One-hundred percent,” Megan said. “She was gorgeous and she was very awkward.”
The cute blonde girl next door was long gone.
“She barely ate. She was very skinny. She was rail-thin,” Megan said. “She was emotionally kind of closed off.”
“I think the big question then is why? What had happened to her?” Maher asked.
“I don’t know the truth to that. She never told me there was a specific catalyst,” Megan replied.
But Megan says Alix Tichelman did hint at some traumatic events.
“We talked about … the fact that we had issues trusting men,” she said. “We had become numb to a lot of things.”
Tichelman had started cutting herself. A photo of Alix in her then-bunkmate’s scrapbook reads “psycho roomie” and “look at the cuts on her arm.”
“Alix Tichelman was actually the first person that I met who did that,” said Ashley Kent, who lived in Tichelman’s dorm. “She came to the school with the scars. She had already etched things into her arm, and she had already made this … image of herself as this like devil person … that’s how she dressed, kind of like a devil worshipper.”
But was that really who Alix was?
“She was actually a really nice girl. It was very much like a front that she putting on, an image,” said Kent.
Megan noticed it, too.
“Once you bypass those walls, she was just a normal girl who was scared,” she noted.
“And what was she scared of?” Maher asked.
“I think herself, honestly. I mean we didn’t know who we were. We had resorted to things that not every person chooses. We had been in trouble.
And at Hyde, it seemed like Tichelman was always in trouble. Megan says they punished her.
“You’re forced to do manual labor, physical labor. They basically tell you what you can and can’t do,” Megan explained.
Megan says she and Alix were forced to build a road.
“We hoed it, each person, and we weeded it. And then they made us cart like wheelbarrows — like huge wheelbarrows full of rocks up and spread ’em, so we basically built a dirt road on campus,” she said.
Ashley Kent remembers one night waking up to Alix screaming. What happened sounds like a scene out of a Stephen King movie.
“She like kinda walked down the halls and like was cutting herself really late at night,” she said.
“She began just to hurt herself because she felt that’s what she deserved,” said Megan.
When it didn’t work out at Hyde, Tichelman’s parents tried other schools. But the worse was still to come.
“Well, she talked about taking heroin when she was in her teens,” said Daly.
And by her early 20s, Tichelman was living in San Francisco, working strip clubs like Larry Flint’s Hustler, and then a place called the Condor. Eventually, she found her way back home to Atlanta, where her life would take a dramatic turn.
“This kinda great thing happens. She meets a guy named Dean,” said Daly.
Alix Tichelman and Dean Riopelle
Dean Riopelle was much older but so in love with Alix Tichelman he wanted to marry her.
“So maybe there’s gonna be a happy ending anyway,” Daly commented.
Then, in September of 2013, two months before Forrest Hayes died, Tichelman’s fiancé, Dean Riopelle, died with heroin in his system:
911 CALL: Um, I don’t know I think my boyfriend overdosed or something like he … he won’t respond, and he’s just laying on the ground. Oh no.
Was it an unfortunate coincidence? Or something more sinister?
ANOTHER HEROIN DEATH
The Masquerade — it’s one of the hottest concert venues in Atlanta, Georgia, and it all belonged to 53-year-old Dean Riopelle, a former cross dressing singer for the rock band the “Impotent Sea Snakes.”
In September of 2013, Riopelle died of a heroin overdose. His girlfriend at the time: Alix Tichelman.
Tichelman called 911 after she says she discovered Riopelle unconscious in his North Atlanta home. That was just two months before she was with Google exec Forrest Hayes when he died.
“We were surprised the similarities in their case to our case,” said Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark.
Based on Tichelman’s arrest in Santa Cruz for the death of Forrest Hayes, police in Milton, Georgia, are now taking a second look at Riopelle’s death. What was first ruled an accidental overdose might very well become a criminal matter.
One person who believes Tichelman should be held responsible for Riopelle’s death is his former employee, Khristina Brucker.
“I think she had something to do with his death, I really do,” said Brucker.
For a few months in 2012, Brucker, an aspiring model, lived in Riopelle’s house, taking care of his children from his previous marriage and his pet hobby: raising dozens of monkeys.
“He said he had a dream about monkeys one day and he just started collecting them. He had the money. So why not?” Brucker told Maureen Maher.
Riopelle told an Atlanta TV station he had hopes of turning his property into a zoo.
“Anybody would spend 20 minutes or an hour with one would see they have a little bit more personality than most other animals,” he said.
But Brucker says his real passion was the woman also featured in that news story, Riopelle’s live-in girlfriend, Alix Tichelman.
“Oh, he loved her. He absolutely loved her. He wanted to marry her and she wanted to marry him, too,” said Brucker.
Dean Riopelle loved everything about Alix Tichelman — except the drugs. By the time Tichelman hooked up with Riopelle, she was a full blown heroin addict. Brucker says Riopelle didn’t share Tichelman’s bad habits.
“Did you ever see him drink?” Maher asked.
“Never,” Brucker replied.
“Smoke?”
“Never.”
“Do drugs?” Maher pressed.
“Not once,” said Brucker.
Brucker stopped working for Riopelle almost a year before he died. Still, she’s sure he would never inject himself with heroin. But she wonders if Alix Tichelman might have.
“Do you think that’s what happened?” Maher asked Brucker.
“I think it’s possible, especially with the case in Santa Cruz where she actually did that,” she replied.
“The idea that she’s going around randomly sticking people with heroin needles is preposterous. These are grown men. They know exactly what they’re doing,” said Todd, an Atlanta businessman.
Todd asked “48 Hours” not to use his last name, but says, as a close friend of Alix Tichelman, he could no longer keep quiet about what he knows about the couple.
“She was devastated after Dean passed away,” he said.
Todd says, not only did Riopelle drink — he drank a lot.
“But she loved him and he loved her. If he were alive today, he would be the first one to bail her out of jail,” he said. “And he would be absolutely mortified at how the people around him … have treated her.”
And Todd says Riopelle was determined to get Tichelman off heroin. He sent her to rehab and even bought her an engagement ring. He texted Todd.
“This is August 30th of 2013 … he was getting Alix a wedding ring. They were going to get married,” Todd said of the text.
That’s just three weeks before Dean Riopelle would overdose.
“She gets her ring, she picked it out today. We drug test every week. If she can stay clean for 14 months we will get married Halloween night 2014…” Todd said, reading aloud one of the text messages that have never been made public. He showed them exclusively to “48 Hours.”
“Alix says this is the first time in 10 years she has gotten out of detox or rehab and lasted a whole week before shooting up again,” Todd said, reading another text.
But Tichelman didn’t stay clean for long. On Sept. 7, 2013, just 10 days before his fatal overdose, Dean Riopelle made a shocking discovery: Alix was online, advertising herself to men.
“She hated that she was compelled to do it because she had this addiction,” Todd said. “There were guys who wanted to rent her penthouse apartments … men with a lot of power and a lot of status. …But she wasn’t interested in anything except getting the money to support her habit. She loved Dean, she wanted to be with Dean, but she had this deep dark secret.”
And, Todd says, when Riopelle found out, he flipped out.
“He said, ‘Can I move all of the prostitute’s s— into your place tomorrow … She is better over there and I would like to bring her stuff to you today so I don’t have to see the whore again,’” Todd said, reading Riopelle’s text.
But Riopelle didn’t kick Tichelman out. Instead, Todd says, he hit the bottle — hard.
“Once he discovered the ad things began to fall apart. Dean desperately loved her. Dean wanted to keep her. But he couldn’t figure out how to reconcile all of this,” said Todd.
So, Todd believes, Riopelle tried something new.
Tichelman would later tell police she was in the bathroom when she heard what sounded like a crash. She went to the bedroom and found Riopelle on the floor.
An autopsy would show he had a fatal mix of heroin, pain killers and alcohol in his system.
“I’m convinced that what happened was Dean was trying to reach a connection with Alix on a deeper level. And he thought that if they could share this thing, this thing she was so attached to, that she couldn’t let go of no matter what, that they could actually be together. And that’s what he wanted more than anything in life,” said Todd.
Following Riopelle’s death, Tichelman sent text messages to Todd: “Gd why did dean have to die?”
In the texts she writes that her mother is coming and will move her to California to the family’s new home two hours outside San Francisco. But Tichelman is trying to detox and tells Todd she is worried:
“I know that city well, like the Tenderloin where I used to live is the third biggest open drug market in the U.S. It takes two minutes to score and you don’t have to know anyone. You can see why I’m worried,” Todd said, reading the text aloud.
Around Oct. 30, 2013, Alix Tichelman arrived in California. She immediately went back online and started advertising herself. Texting Todd: “Guys out here got mad money.”
And within days she had a prospect. She was about to come into serious cash.
“This is on the second of November and she says an ‘amazing guy’ found her…’He is the real deal.’ Tomorrow she’s going on his boat and for a few hours he’s giving her $400 to $500 cash. Then a check for $2,000,” Todd said of another text. “Now, I’m relatively certain that the guy on the boat she’s referring to was Forrest.”
Three weeks later, on Nov. 22, Alix Tichelman was definitely with Forrest Hayes on his boat, where Todd believes she was simply making money to feed her addiction.
“Tell me one thing that happened on that yacht that was not absolutely consensual between two adults,” Todd said. “Nothing.”
STUNNING DEVELOPMENTS
On May 19, 2015, Alix Tichelman is back in court to have a date set for her trial.
She’s been in jail for almost a year — her past modeling life a distant memory. Tichelman faces almost 20 years behind bars, charged in the killing of Forrest Hayes, along with drug possession and prostitution.
Her public defenders, Jerry Christensen and Larry Biggam, have insisted she is not a cold-blooded killer.
“Alix Tichelman did nothing that Mr. Hayes didn’t want her to do. Two adults engaged in mutual and cooperative drug usage. And it went wrong. But it was an accident,” Biggam told reporters.
Defense lawyers say Hayes was an eager participant that night, even using his own cell phone light to show Tichelman where to inject him. And they are adamant she then simply panicked.
“This video will show that it’s an accident. Everything about this video indicates accident and panic, everything about it,” Christensen told reporters.
For months they’ve investigated Forrest Hayes’ past, asking prosecutors to hand over video from the “Escape’s” cameras as far back as six months before he died.
“We have some indications from other material that there may have been previous encounters on the boat. It would be highly relevant in regard to whether or not there is — drug usage along with sex,” Christensen told reporters.
Judge: Do you understand that when you plead no contest or guilty you’re getting two felonies and five misdemeanors?
Alix Tichelman: Yes
Alix Tichelman in court on May 19, 2015.
“48 Hours”
And through her lawyer, she apologizes to the Hayes family: “It was accident and panic and she’s so, so sorry for it.”
Tichelman was sentenced to six years in a local jail, but with credit for her time served and a reduction by the judge, she’ll likely serve just a little over two years.
After the hearing, there was another stunning development. Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez says the family of Forrest Hayes told him they never wanted Alix Tichelman charged.
“The family did not want this case to be filed, they would have been very happy if this case had been dismissed,” Vasquez explained. “They were terrified about the prospect of this case going to trial.”
The family, he said, did not want that video from Hayes’ boat to ever be made public.
“I can only imagine what further pain, what further humiliation they would endure if that video was released out into the public,” said Vasquez.
What’s more, he says Alix was never a cold-blooded killer, as described by law enforcement.
“That was never depicted in that surveillance video,” said Vasquez.
In fact, the prosecutor agrees with the defense attorneys that Alix was anything but callous when Forrest collapsed.
“And the fact that she made some effort to wake him up, hit him in the chest, smack him in the face, holding him up trying to lift him up, then holding him, hugging him at one point, and then you can see her crying in one instance, and then yelling for him to wake up in one instance — that clearly showed somebody who appeared concerned at that time. And that is certainly inconsistent with somebody who acted with an obvious intent to kill,” he explained.
But, the prosecutor says, what she is guilty of is not doing enough.
“She was the only one who could have rendered help and she neglected to do so, she failed to do so and instead took liberties to destroy evidence and to make her getaway while leaving the man there to die,” said Vasquez.
In the end, one of Tichelman’s attorneys, Athena Reis, says her time in jail has been helping turn Alix’s life around.
“You know, she’s clean and sober. She’s closer with her family than ever, and I think she’s really used this time to reflect,” said Reis.
But for Forrest Hayes’ family , there is no turning around. And they’ll try to put the scars of his actions behind them.
“From this point on, the family no longer has to worry about the concern associated with all the scrutiny, all the ridicule and all the scorn generated by all the media attention in this case,” Vasquez said. “This family has been through a lot.”
BOSTON — While the scourge of opioid addiction continues to affect Massachusetts, the number of people getting legal prescriptions for heavily addictive medicines is falling, according to the latest federal data.
Massachusetts had the second lowest opioid prescription rate in New England in 2022, following Vermont, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Health care providers in the Bay State wrote 30.8 opioid prescriptions for every 100 residents, the federal agency reported.
That’s a slight drop from the previous year but a substantial decline from the 66 per 100 prescription rate in 2006, when the CDC began tracking the data, which lags by two years.
New Hampshire, which has also seen declining numbers of opioid prescriptions in recent years, had the third-lowest rate in New England in 2022, with 32 prescriptions for every 100 residents. Maine had the highest rate in the region, or 35.2 per 100 residents.
Nationally, the overall prescription rate was 39.5 prescriptions per 100 people in 2022, according to the CDC data.
Curbing opioid addiction has been a major focus on Beacon Hill for a number of years, with hundreds of millions of dollars being devoted to expanding treatment and prevention efforts.
For many, opioid addiction has its roots in prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin and Percocet, which led them to street-bought heroin and fentanyl once those prescriptions ran out.
In 2016, then-Gov. Charlie Baker and lawmakers pushed through a raft of rules to curb over-prescribing of opioids. Those included a cap on new prescriptions written in any seven-day period and a requirement that doctors consult a state prescription monitoring database before prescribing an additive opioid.
Meanwhile opioid manufacturers have been hammered with hundreds of lawsuits from the states and local governments over their role in fueling a wave of opioid addiction. Attorney General Maura Healey’s office recently agreed to a multi-billion dollar settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.
Supporters of the tougher requirements say they have saved lives by dramatically reducing the number of heavily addictive opioids being prescribed.
Pain management groups say the regulatory backlash has made some doctors worried about writing prescriptions for opioids, depriving patients of treatment.
There were 2,125 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths in 2023 — which is 10%, or 232, fewer fatal overdoses than the same period in 2022, according to the latest data from the state Department of Public Health.
Last year’s opioid-related overdose death rate also decreased by 10% to 30.2 per 100,000 people compared with 33.5 in 2022, DPH said.
Health officials attributed the persistently high death rates to the effects of an “increasingly poisoned drug supply,” primarily with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Fentanyl was present in 90% of the overdose deaths where a toxicology report was available, state officials noted.
Nationally, there were 107,543 overdose deaths reported in the U.S. in 2023, a 3% decrease from the estimated 111,029 in 2022, according to CDC data.
On Beacon Hill, state lawmakers are being pressured to take more aggressive steps to expand treatment and prevention options for those struggling with opioid addiction.
Last month, a coalition of more than 100 public health and community-based organizations wrote to House and Senate leaders urging them to pass substance abuse legislation before the Dec. 31 end of the two-year session.
“There isn’t a day that goes by without several people in the Commonwealth dying from an overdose or losing loved ones to this disease,” they wrote. “As individuals and institutions working to combat the opioid epidemic, we know the Commonwealth must do more to prevent addiction, help people find pathways to treatment and recovery, and save lives.”
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
BOSTON — While the scourge of opioid addiction continues to affect Massachusetts, the number of people getting legal prescriptions for heavily addictive medicines is falling, according to the latest federal data.
Massachusetts had the second lowest opioid prescription rate in New England in 2022, following Vermont, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Health care providers in the Bay State wrote 30.8 opioid prescriptions for every 100 residents, the federal agency reported.
That’s a slight drop from the previous year but a substantial decline from the 66 per 100 prescription rate in 2006, when the CDC began tracking the data, which lags by two years.
New Hampshire, which has also seen declining numbers of opioid prescriptions in recent years, had the third-lowest rate in New England in 2022, with 32 prescriptions for every 100 residents. Maine had the highest rate in the region, or 35.2 per 100 residents.
Nationally, the overall prescription rate was 39.5 prescriptions per 100 people in 2022, according to the CDC data.
Curbing opioid addiction has been a major focus on Beacon Hill for a number of years, with hundreds of millions of dollars being devoted to expanding treatment and prevention efforts.
For many, opioid addiction has its roots in prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin and Percocet, which led them to street-bought heroin and fentanyl once those prescriptions ran out.
In 2016, then-Gov. Charlie Baker and lawmakers pushed through a raft of rules to curb over-prescribing of opioids. Those included a cap on new prescriptions written in any seven-day period and a requirement that doctors consult a state prescription monitoring database before prescribing an additive opioid.
Meanwhile opioid manufacturers have been hammered with hundreds of lawsuits from the states and local governments over their role in fueling a wave of opioid addiction. Attorney General Maura Healey’s office recently agreed to a multi-billion dollar settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.
Supporters of the tougher requirements say they have saved lives by dramatically reducing the number of heavily addictive opioids being prescribed.
Pain management groups say the regulatory backlash has made some doctors worried about writing prescriptions for opioids, depriving patients of treatment.
There were 2,125 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths in 2023 — which is 10%, or 232, fewer fatal overdoses than the same period in 2022, according to the latest data from the state Department of Public Health.
Last year’s opioid-related overdose death rate also decreased by 10% to 30.2 per 100,000 people compared with 33.5 in 2022, DPH said.
Health officials attributed the persistently high death rates to the effects of an “increasingly poisoned drug supply,” primarily with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Fentanyl was present in 90% of the overdose deaths where a toxicology report was available, state officials noted.
Nationally, there were 107,543 overdose deaths reported in the U.S. in 2023, a 3% decrease from the estimated 111,029 in 2022, according to CDC data.
On Beacon Hill, state lawmakers are being pressured to take more aggressive steps to expand treatment and prevention options for those struggling with opioid addiction.
Last month, a coalition of more than 100 public health and community-based organizations wrote to House and Senate leaders urging them to pass substance abuse legislation before the Dec. 31 end of the two-year session.
”There isn’t a day that goes by without several people in the Commonwealth dying from an overdose or losing loved ones to this disease,” they wrote. “As individuals and institutions working to combat the opioid epidemic, we know the Commonwealth must do more to prevent addiction, help people find pathways to treatment and recovery, and save lives.”
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The tight-knit, community-centered feel of St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood is what brought Angie and Ted Vig’s guitar shop, Vig Guitars, to their current location along Snelling Avenue ten years ago.
“After the unrest happened, everybody came out and started cleaning up and helping and asking if we needed help,” said Angie Vig.
However, a recent epidemic, as Angie calls it, of widespread narcotics use — sometimes just outside her business — has impacted public perception, and in turn, foot traffic.
“They won’t stop in because people are gathered in front of a certain business,” said Vig.
Drug issues and shoplifting began around the time of the COVID shutdown, she said.
A Saint Paul Police incident report from September said the hub of the fentanyl-fueled drug activity centered around Kimball Court Apartments along Snelling Avenue.
According to that report “every doorway, alley, walkway between buildings, and dark spot available is littered with burnt aluminum foil and dirty needles.” The report goes on to say that employees at both the nearby Holiday and Taco Bell “…are constantly threatened and harassed for being… unwilling to allow people to shoplift.”
“Door Dash drivers at Taco Bell have been robbed several times out in front of the business,” the report said.
It’s gotten so bad, the owners of Vig Guitars said they are looking at moving their business to a different area.
“It’s like we’re being forced to move, to leave,” said Vig.
Vig said there are no easy answers to solve the neighborhood’s drug epidemic.
“There’s a lot of help out there, but there’s a lot of people who don’t want to accept it.”
If you spend much time in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, you will notice, amid the clamor of buses and trucks and car horns and vendors hawking their goods, a nearly steady symphony of sirens.
They scream day and night in rapid response to an endless run of emergencies, many of them in and around MacArthur Park. But it’s not usually a fire that LAFD Station 11 is responding to. Through August of this year, there have been 599 drug overdose calls, compared with 36 runs for structure fires.
“I’ve had three in one day, same person,” said firefighter/paramedic Madison Viray, who has worked at Station 11 for nine years.
California is about to be hit by an aging population wave, and Steve Lopez is riding it. His column focuses on the blessings and burdens of advancing age — and how some folks are challenging the stigma associated with older adults.
That’s just one measure of how bad the epidemic is in the low-income neighborhood where homelessness is rampant, drugs are sold and consumed in the open, 83 people died of overdoses in 2023, and merchants complain of gang threats and thefts by addicts.
In the middle of it all is Station 11, located on 7th Street two blocks from the park, with its trucks rolling out around the clock in every direction. Hanging on a wall inside the station is a proclamation from Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez and her colleagues honoring the crew for being ranked by Firehouse Magazine as the busiest ladder company in the nation in 2022.
This year, Station 11 ranks just behind Station 9 in Skid Row (site of the city’s other major drug zone) for total runs, but it is on course to match last year’s total of 15,262 calls for fire and medical incidents (the majority of which do not involve overdoses).
Photographs of the crew at Los Angeles Fire Station 11 are mounted in the recreation room of the firehouse.
While I was meeting with several members of the crew in Station 11 Wednesday afternoon, Viray and engineer Cody Eitner left abruptly to answer a call from an alley near 6th Street and Burlington Avenue. They returned a short time later to say they were too late to save the victim.
“Someone found him and called, but they’d been gone for too long and there was nothing we could do,” Eitner said.
The word on the street is that the drugs in the neighborhood are dirty. Cocaine might be spiked with fentanyl, and fentanyl might be spiked with the veterinary tranquilizer Xylazine, or “tranq” —all of which elevates the possibility of bad reactions.
It’s not uncommon to see people in the park with multiple festering ulcers on their arms and legs — one of the side-effects of tranq. Nor is it uncommon to see people bent in half, like twisted statues, because of muscle rigidity the firefighters refer to as the “Fentanyl fold.”
“Most of the time they’re thankful for saving their lives,” Cody Eitner said about the people they have revived from drug overdoses.
Battalion Chief Brian Franco, who first worked at Station 11 two decades ago as a firefighter, said, “we’ve seen a lot more fatalities from the overdoses than we did with heroin.”
And yet with fentanyl, the drug naloxone, if administered quickly enough, can reverse the effects of opiates and save lives. Sometimes it’s used by friends of the victim, or by a MacArthur Park overdose response team recently initiated by Councilmember Hernandez and the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Or by crews from Station 11.
“The vast majority of our [overdose] calls now are fentanyl,” said Capt. Adam VanGerpen, who serves as a public information officer but also goes on runs. “If we see that there are very shallow respirations … then we’re gonna open up their eyes and see if their pupils are pinpoint. Now we know it’s probably not … cardiac arrest or … respiratory arrest. Now we’re thinking, OK, this is an overdose.”
It can be easier to treat a fentanyl case than a PCP or meth overdose, VanGerpen said, because the latter two drugs can make a person agitated and combative. If it’s a fentanyl overdose, responders will administer the naloxone as a nasal spray (Narcan), inject it into a muscle, or pump it through an IV, depending on the situation.
“Anytime we’re successful, it’s satisfying,” said Capt. Adam Brandos. “In a station like this, where we run so many calls as we do, and it’s kind of a monotonous routine, those little wins are really good with the morale. But it’s not so satisfying to see the repeat. And we’re not changing the cycle at all. … It keeps repeating itself over and over again.”
Two men slump on a bench in MacArthur Park.
Sometimes, Brandos said, a single response can trigger a cascade: “We may go on one call in the park where that call turns into four, because … of the other guy who’s over by the tree, and the other gal that’s over by the lake, and then the other person that’s over here. So that’s pretty normal.”
What is most striking about it all, Brandos said, is that these scenes play out so frequently they have become normalized.
When you first set eyes on the depths of social collapse and public distress, it’s shocking. But it’s all there again the next day, and the next, and although the shock endures, a bit of numbness takes hold, along with doubts that anyone in power is up to the task of restoring any semblance of order.
Anthony Temple, an emergency incident technician at Station 11, took me on a dark virtual tour of a typical day, beginning at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro Station, which has doubled in recent years as subterranean hall of horrors:
Capt. Adam VanGerpen watches as a fire truck is deployed from Station 11.
“People have overdosed … on the subway platform while people are getting out of the train,” Temple said. “You’ve got people moving around this person, and we all come down there and do what we’ve got to do and take them to the hospital and leave. And you go back to the station and you get dispatched on another overdose where the person will be down, on the sidewalk, kind of like hanging into the street. …
“It’s just day in, day out, morning, noon, night, sidewalk, platform, staircase, park,” Temple said. “You know, it’s just like everywhere.”
Two members of the crew, Viray and Brandos, said they’ve brought their children to the neighborhood to show them where Dad works, and to show them a world they couldn’t have imagined.
And the reaction?
“Shocked,” Viray said of his 14-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter.
Emergency medical technicians and paramedics with Los Angeles Fire Station 11 keep an eye on a man they revived from an overdose.
“I wanted to show them what some decision-making could look like,” said Brandos, whose girls are 9 and 11. “They wanted to know why everybody was leaning over on the sidewalk. … I told them exactly what was going on.”
The crew told me they share a camaraderie that’s specific to the demands of Station 11. If you choose to work there, it’s because you like staying busy, you take pride in the number of runs, and you learn to accept that you didn’t create the crisis and can’t fix it. You can only respond to it, one call at a time.
Just before 6:30 p.m., a call came in. A middle-aged man was down at Alvarado Street and Wilshire Boulevard, across the street from the park, in possible cardiac arrest from an overdose. A truck and an ambulance rolled, lights flashing, sirens blaring. They were on the scene in less than three minutes.
The subject was down in front of Yoshinoya Japanese Kitchen, which is bordered by vendors selling electronics, clothing and toiletries. Some of them were closing down in the fading light of day, and people were still gathered behind the restaurant in an alley that serves as a drug bazaar. It’s a hellscape that has become part of the terrain, like the palm trees that rise over Alvarado Street and the street lamps that have gone dead.
One vendor went about his business as if he’d seen this scene play out so often he didn’t need to look again. Some passersby paused to check out the commotion, perhaps waiting to see if the unconscious man would make it. A boy of 10 or so moved in close enough to watch as three firefighters moved toward the man.
The air was rank with the day’s burned energy and wasted chances, and in the spot where I stood behind the ambulance, trash fanned out six feet into the street from the curb. A bag of chips. A Yoshinoya takeout bag. Coke cans. Empty food containers.
All of this is the normalized reality of a neighborhood that once stood as a gem of the city, and now suffers in wait for someone, anyone, to stand up and say this should not exist, cannot exist, and must end, for the sake of civility and for the benefit of the working people who make up the majority of the residents here, raising children who deserve better.
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics with Los Angeles Fire Station 11 get ready to take a man, they just revived from a drug overdose, to the hospital at the corner of S. Alvarado and Wilshire Blvd.
Firefighter/paramedic Luke Winfield put on a pair of white latex gloves and prepared a nalaxone IV, tied a blue tourniquet around the man’s upper arm and plunged the life-saving drug into the crease of his elbow.
After several seconds, the man jerked up as if on springs, back from the edge of death. He asked what had happened.
“You overdosed,” one of the firefighters said.
Still wobbly, he fell onto a vending cart and lay on his back, looking up at the reincarnated sky as it faded to pink. He was going to make it. This time. They loaded him into the ambulance for a ride to the hospital.
I asked Winfield how many times, in his two years at Station 11, he had done what he just did.
Students in Loudoun County will now be able to carry naloxone in their backpacks, as part of an update to the school district’s student medication policy.
The change will allow students who have received training, and whose parents have signed off, to carry the overdose-reversal drug at school.
The policy updates come about a year after the school system reported a series of overdoses, including at least eight at one county high school. That prompted Gov. Glenn Youngkin to sign an executive order requiring school divisions to promptly notify families of a student overdose.
“This is completely optional,” school board member Anne Donohue said. “This, in no way, is obligating any student at LCPS to carry naloxone. It is simply saying, if they want to, they will be allowed to.”
According to the approved policy, a student who administers the naloxone has to tell a staff member.
Any student who wants to carry naloxone in their backpack will have to get it themselves.
While some school board members said the change will improve student safety, others suggested it puts too much pressure on students.
“We are asking students to become emergency responders, and I feel like it’s putting a heavy responsibility on the students,” board member Deana Griffiths said. “You may also lose actual confirmed reporting by students if they are administering naloxone.”
Board member Lauren Shernoff echoed that sentiment, suggesting the school division is “putting what I feel to be a very adult thing on our children, if they take that responsibility.”
But, board member April Chandler said, “If you’re faced with an overdose of your classmate, it’s traumatic either way. Are you empowered to do something that could save a life? Or are you going to be traumatized by the fact that you saw somebody pass away? It’s impossible to consider.”
The death of a baby killed in a Northwest D.C. overdose incident in May will be investigated as a homicide, police said.
The death of a baby killed in a Northwest D.C. overdose incident in May will be investigated as a homicide, police said.
Officials said they were called to an apartment in the 1400 block of Newton Street just after 11 a.m. on May 27 for a report of an unconscious infant.
First responders took the infant — 2-month-old Amiri Royal Bynum — to a local hospital where he died, according to police.
D.C.’s chief medical examiner determined on Aug. 26 that fentanyl intoxication was the reason Bynum died. His death was ruled a homicide.
Officials haven’t offered any information about possible suspects in the homicide investigation.
Police asked anyone with information about the incident to call them at 202-727-9099. They’ve also offered a reward of up to $25,000, which will help arrest and convict a suspect.
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BOSTON — The scourge of opioid addiction continues to affect Massachusetts, but new data shows a double-digit decrease in the number of overdose deaths in the past year.
There were 2,125 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths in 2023 — which is 10%, or 232, fewer fatal overdoses than during the same period in 2022, according to a report released this week by the state Department of Public Health.
Last year’s opioid-related overdose death rate also decreased by 10% to 30.2 per 100,000 people compared to 33.5 in 2022, DPH said.
Health officials attributed the persistently high death rates to the effects of an “increasingly poisoned drug supply,” primarily with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Fentanyl was present in 90% of the overdose deaths where a toxicology report was available, state officials noted.
Preliminary data from the first three months of 2024 showed a continued decline in opioid-related overdose deaths, the agency said, with 507 confirmed and estimated deaths, a 9% drop from the same time period last year.
Gov. Maura Healey said she is “encouraged” by the drop in fatal overdoses but the state needs to continue to focus on “prevention, treatment and recovery efforts to address the overdose crisis that continues to claim too many lives and devastate too many families in Massachusetts.”
Substance abuse counselors welcomed the declining number of fatal opioid overdoses, but said the data shows that there is still more work to be done to help people struggling with substance use disorders.
“While the number of opioid-related overdose deaths in the commonwealth remains unacceptably high, it is encouraging to see what we hope is a reversal of a long and painful trend,” Bridgewell President & CEO Chris Tuttle said in a statement. “The time is now to boost public investments and once and for all overcome the scourge of the opioid epidemic.”
Nationally, there were 107,543 overdose deaths reported in the U.S. in 2023, a 3% decrease from the estimated 111,029 in 2022, according to recently released U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
In New Hampshire, drug overdose deaths also declined by double digits in 2023, according to figures released in May by the state’s medical examiner and the National Centers for Disease Control.
There were 430 deaths attributed to overdoses in 2023, an 11.7% decrease from 2022’s 487, according to the data.
Curbing opioid addiction has been a major focus on Beacon Hill for a number of years with hundreds of millions of dollars being devoted to expanding treatment and prevention efforts.
The state has set some of the strictest opioid-prescribing laws in the nation, including a cap on new prescriptions in a seven-day period and a requirement that doctors consult a state prescription monitoring database before prescribing an addictive opioid.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into the state from multistate settlements with opioid makers and distributors, including $110 million from a $6 billion deal with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.
Under state law, about 60% of that money will be deposited in the state’s opioid recovery fund, while the remainder will be distributed to communities.
Earlier this week, House lawmakers were expected to take up a package of bills aimed at improving treatment of substance abuse disorders and reducing opioid overdose deaths.
The plan would require private insurers to cover emergency opioid overdose-reversing drugs such as naloxone and require drug treatment facilities to provide two doses of overdose-reversal drugs when discharging patients, among other changes.
Another provision would require licenses for recovery coaches, who are increasingly sent to emergency rooms, drug treatment centers and courtrooms to help addicts get clean.
Backers of the plan said the goal is to integrate peer recovery coaches more into the state’s health care system, helping addicts who have taken the first steps toward recovery.
Long-term recovery remains one of the biggest hurdles to breaking the cycle of addiction, they say.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
Workers who are injured on the job are at higher risk for fatal opioid-related overdoses, according to a new study, which calls for renewed efforts to reduce the stigma of drug addiction.
The report, released Thursday by the state Department of Public Health, found that working-age Massachusetts residents who died between 2011 and 2020 were 35% more likely to have died of an opioid-related overdose if they had previously been injured at work.
DPH researchers compiled information about individuals’ employment and work-related injury status from their workers’ compensation claims and linked it with data from their death certificates.
Researchers reviewed the details of 4,304 working-age adults who died between 2011 and 2020 and found at least 17.2% had at least one workplace injury claim and died of an opioid-related overdose, according to the study.
Public health officials say the study is the first linking the impact of work-related injuries to opioid-related overdose deaths.
“Occupational injuries can take both a physical and mental toll, and those who suffer injuries at work may be discouraged from seeking help because of stigmatization and fear of losing their jobs,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said in a prepared statement. “Avoiding or delaying care can lead to a preventable overdose death.”
She called for stepped-up efforts to “eliminate the stigma that accompanies substance use disorder in all sectors of society, including the workplace.”
The release of the report comes as opioid overdose deaths remain devastatingly high in the Bay State, despite a slight decrease over the past year.
There were 2,323 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths in Massachusetts from Oct. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023 — eight fewer than the same period in 2021, according to a report released in December by the health department.
Health officials attributed the persistently high death rates to the effects of an “increasingly poisoned drug supply,” primarily with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Fentanyl was present in 93% of the overdose deaths where a toxicology report was available, state officials noted.
Curbing opioid addiction has been a major focus on Beacon Hill for a number of years with hundreds of millions of dollars being devoted to expanding treatment and prevention efforts.
The state has set some of the strictest opioid prescribing laws in the nation, including a cap on new prescriptions in a seven-day period and a requirement that doctors consult a state prescription monitoring database before prescribing an addictive opioid.
The Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund, created by the state Legislature in 2020, has received more than $101 million from settlements with drug makers and distributors over their alleged role in the opioid crisis, according to the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
More than 25,000 people have died from opioid-related overdoses in Massachusetts since 2011, according to state records.
Nationally, fatal drug overdoses fell by roughly 3% in 2023, according data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the toll from fatal overdoses in 2023 remained high, claiming 107,543 lives, the federal agency said.
Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were responsible for about 70% of lives lost, while methamphetamine and other synthetic stimulants are responsible for about 30% of deaths, the CDC said.
“The shift from plant-based drugs, like heroin and cocaine, to synthetic, chemical-based drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, has resulted in the most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced,” Anne Milgram, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a recent statement.
The DEA points to Mexican drug cartels, who it says are smuggling large quantities of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs manufactured in China into the country, along the southern border.
“The suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and money launderers all play a role in the web of deliberate and calculated treachery orchestrated by these cartels,” she said.
Workers who are injured on the job are at higher risk for fatal opioid-related overdoses, according to a new study, which calls for renewed efforts to reduce the stigma of drug addiction.
The report, released Thursday by the state Department of Public Health, found that working-age Massachusetts residents who died between 2011 and 2020 were 35% more likely to have died of an opioid-related overdose if they had previously been injured at work.
DPH researchers compiled information about individuals’ employment and work-related injury status from their workers’ compensation claims and linked it to data from their death certificates.
Researchers reviewed the details of 4,304 working-age adults who died between 2011 and 2020 and found at least 17.2% had at least one workplace injury claim and died of an opioid-related overdose, according to the study.
Public health officials say the study is the first linking the impact of work-related injuries to opioid-related overdose deaths.
“Occupational injuries can take both a physical and mental toll, and those who suffer injuries at work may be discouraged from seeking help because of stigmatization and fear of losing their jobs,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said in a statement. “Avoiding or delaying care can lead to a preventable overdose death.”
Walsh called for stepped-up efforts to “eliminate the stigma that accompanies substance use disorder in all sectors of society, including the workplace.”
The release of the report comes as opioid overdose deaths remain devastatingly high in the Bay State, despite a slight decrease over the past year.
There were 2,323 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths in Massachusetts from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023 — eight fewer than the same period in 2021, according to a report released in December by the health department.
Health officials attributed the persistently high death rates to the effects of an “increasingly poisoned drug supply,” primarily with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Fentanyl was present in 93% of the overdose deaths where a toxicology report was available, state officials noted.
Curbing opioid addiction has been a major focus on Beacon Hill for a number of years with hundreds of millions of dollars being devoted to expanding treatment and prevention efforts.
The state has set some of the strictest opioid-prescribing laws in the nation, including a cap on new prescriptions in a seven-day period and a requirement that doctors consult a state prescription monitoring database before prescribing an addictive opioid.
The Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund, created by the state Legislature in 2020, has received more than $101 million from settlements with drug makers and distributors over their alleged role in the opioid crisis, according to the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
More than 25,000 people have died from opioid-related overdoses in Massachusetts since 2011, according to state records.
Nationally, fatal drug overdoses fell by roughly 3% in 2023, according data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the toll from fatal overdoses in 2023 remained high, claiming 107,543 lives, the federal agency said.
Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were responsible for approximately 70% of lives lost, while methamphetamine and other synthetic stimulants are responsible for approximately 30% of deaths, the CDC said.
“The shift from plant-based drugs, like heroin and cocaine, to synthetic, chemical-based drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, has resulted in the most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced,” Anne Milgram, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a recent statement.
The DEA points to Mexican drug cartels, who it says are smuggling large quantities of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs manufactured in China into the country along the southern border.
“The suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and money launderers all play a role in the web of deliberate and calculated treachery orchestrated by these cartels,” she said.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
CARY, N.C. (WTVD) — On Tuesday, Wake County school officials took another step toward putting potentially life-saving medicine into public schools — countywide.
Wake County School Board members approved a new policy Tuesday that would require all schools in the county to keep a supply of Naloxone — also known by its brand name Narcan — and train faculty members on how to use it. Families who have been touched by the fentanyl epidemic say that’s a big win.
“The more we say fentanyl out loud without shame, the more people understand that anybody could die,” said Barb Walsh, a Cary mom and founder of the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
Someone’s going to die because Naloxone wasn’t in school. And is that a risk they want to take?
– Barb Walsh, founder of Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina
Barb’s daughter, Sophia, died in August 2021 after drinking from a water bottle that had the dangerous opioid mixed into it. Since then, Barb’s made it her mission to not only support families like hers but also promote life-saving medicine however she can. She founded the Fentanyl Victims Network in August 2022, one year after Sophia died.
“I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen just in case I have a fire, that’s because I want one,” she said. “Naloxone is the same thing.”
In December, Barb attended a Wake County school board meeting, urging officials to consider requiring Naloxone be put into schools. Now, that’s one step closer to becoming reality, after a new policy was approved — and just needs to be voted on to become official.
“We don’t know where the threat is going to come from. But if we have a tool that can save a life, particularly one of our students’ lives, we want to do everything we can to take those steps,” said board chair Chris Heagarty.
According to state health statistics, Naloxone was used for suspected overdoses 21 times on school grounds statewide last year. Walsh said it’s not worth waiting for more.
“It may not have happened in North Carolina yet. But someone’s going to die because Naloxone wasn’t in school. And is that a risk they want to take?” she said.
Though there’s work to be done — only about 20% of North Carolina’s public school districts have Naloxone policies — the significance of Tuesday’s decision isn’t lost on Walsh.
“It doesn’t take an army. It doesn’t take a lobbyist. It takes a mom who’s lost a child to stand in front of the school board to make this happen. And that’s significant,” she said.
Funding for the new policy is not yet clear. Heagarty said they’ll be targeting possible state and federal funds in addition to county funding out of the superintendent’s budget. The policy will be discussed at a full board meeting in May, and if passed could be in place by next school year.
MORGAN HILL – A disgraced pharmacy technician who lost his state license has been charged with murder in connection with the fentanyl overdose death of a South Bay woman, prosecutors said.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office confirmed to CBS News Bay Area that 34-year-old Benjamin Nathan Williams was charged Friday with murder and felony drug sales in the death of 26-year-old Hope Warrick last year.
According to an investigation by the Sheriff’s Office, Warrick was found dead in her apartment in unincorporated Morgan Hill on Feb. 13, 2023 by her mother.
The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Warrick had cocaine, amphetamine and fentanyl in her system when she died. Tests determined the substance found in Warrick’s home contained both cocaine and fentanyl.
During a search of Warrick’s phone, deputies said she performed a Google search on “how to tell if there is fentnynl (sic) in something.”
Investigators also found a conversation between the victim and Williams that took place the night before her death. The messages purportedly show Williams selling Warrick what she believed was cocaine and “added in some extra for her.”
Investigators said drug dealers often add fentanyl to narcotics to produce a stronger high.
According to the Department of Consumer Affairs Board of Pharmacy, Williams had previously served as a pharmacy technician at the Walgreens in Marina, near Monterey. Williams’ license was revoked in 2021 after he admitted to stealing pills, including hydrocodone and morphine.
Deputies said Williams was arrested on Nov. 8, 2023 in Morgan Hill on suspicion of robbery and evading a police officer. Following the arrest, Williams’ phone was seized, which also revealed the same messages sent between William and Warrick.
Jail records show Williams is being held at the Santa Clara County Jail on $71,000 bail.
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Oregon paved the way as the first state to decriminalize drug use in 2020, to instead focus on addiction and recovery. But due to Portland’s growing fentanyl crisis, Gov. Tina Kotek this week declared a 90-day emergency to address the increase in overdose deaths. Adam Yamaguchi has more.
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A Colorado overdose death has been linked to a new formulation of nitazenes, a class of powerful opioid analgesics being increasingly seen in the illicit drug market.
Nitazenes have been around for decades, experts told CBS News, and have been seen in multiple formulations. The person who died in Colorado had used a formulation called N-Desethyl etonitazene. The man died in mid-2023, Denver officials said, but laboratory testing about the substance he overdosed on was not returned until recently.
It’s believed to be the first time that formulation was found in an overdose death, according to the Boulder County Coroner’s office.
The coroner told CBS News that while Denver, Colorado, has seen a decrease in fentanyl overdoses, use of nitazenes has emerged — which “raises new concerns.”
Here’s what to know about nitazenes.
Alex Krotulski, 32, associate director and forensic toxicologist, holds a nitazene powder sample at the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Photo by Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post via Getty Images
What are nitazenes?
Nitazenes were first developed in the 1950s and early 1960s, said Claire Zagorski, a chemist, paramedic and translational scientist in Austin, Texas. At the time, they weren’t illicit drugs, but were intended to be sold commercially. That never happened, Zagorski said, and in recent years, those original formulations have been used as a backbone by illicit drug manufacturers to make new synthetic opioids amid a crackdown on substances like fentanyl.
“When you have a backbone of one drug to start with, there is almost limitless ways to modify it,” Zagorski said. Modifications are made by adding substances to that backbone in a laboratory setting.
Theillicit use of nitazenes remains rare, according to Dr. Wilson M. Compton, the deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. However, testing for nitazenes is not conducted in every overdose death, Compton said, so “we don’t actually know the complete universe of how many deaths are due to these potentially very toxic compounds.”
Compton said that according to reports by the Drug Enforcement Administration, nitazenes make up “much less than 1%” of the opioids that the agency seizes. However, Zagorski said she expects to see those numbers rise.
Alex Krotulski, 32, associate director and forensic toxicologist, prepares nitazene powder samples for analysis at the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, in Willow Grove, Pa.
Photo by Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post via Getty Images
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more and more nitazenes because they’re still under the radar to a lot of America and it takes time to implement advisories for law enforcement to all get on the same page of what they need to look for,” she said.
There are multiple forms of the drug circulating, including the N-Desethyl etonitazene version seen in Colorado. Other common formulations include isotonitazenes, metonitazenes, etonitazenes and protonitzenes, according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation.
“It really is like Whack-a-Mole. Like they just keep coming and coming and coming,” Zagorski said, because of the way the drugs are developed. Now that stopping fentanyl is a national priority, she expects to see more nitazenes being developed by illicit manufacturers and used as authorities to catch up.
“We’re seeing all of these odd chemicals kind of popping up. It’s kind of a divide and conquer strategy, and it’s hard to keep it keep track of things like that,” she said.
Are nitazenes more dangerous than fentanyl?
Both Zagorski and Compton described nitazenes as “very potent,” but how much risk they pose varies based on the different formulations. N-Desethyl etonitazene and another formulation, etonitazene, are “about 10 times as potent as fentanyl,” Zagorski said. Fentanyl is about 50 times more potent that heroin, according to the DEA.
“This is really going to hit with a wallop,” Zagorksi said.
Compton said that some versions of nitazenes can be even more dangerous than carfentanil, which is a fentanyl compound that is about 100 times more potent than fentanyl itself.
“They’re even more potent than something that we’re already quite concerned about,” said Compton.
Nitazenes can also be mixed into other drugs that are sold illicitly, meaning people may not know that they’re consuming something so dangerous, Compton said.
“Nitazenes being mixed with other illicit drugs emphasizes the increased risk of harm or death. Illicit drug suppliers often mix drugs to increase potency or lower costs,” the Boulder County coroner’s office said. It’s not clear if the man who died in Colorado knew he was ingesting N-Desethyl etonitazene.
There also hasn’t been much research into how nitazenes interact with other substances, so there may be unexpected side effects from mixing it with other drugs or alcohol, Compton said.
Does naloxone work on nitazenes?
Naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses and is more commonly known by the brand name Narcan, can reverse an overdose that involves nitazenes, experts said.
Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that binds to the same receptors in the brain that are affected by nitazenes, Zagorski said.
Compton said that anyone who experiences a nitazene overdose and is revived with naloxone should seek medical treatment because some nitazines may be long-acting.
“There’s a concern that as the naloxone wears off, they may fall back into a coma and have respiratory depression,” Compton said.
Naloxone also works on powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and is available over-the-counter.
Kerry Breen is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
The year isn’t over, but San Francisco has already hit a grim milestone: 2023 is the deadliest on record for fatal drug overdoses.
More than 750 people died in accidental drug overdoses during the first 11 months of 2023, according to a report released this week from the city and county office of the chief medical examiner. That surpassed the 726 seen during the last recorded high, in 2020 — which was a horrific rise from the year before.
“We have seen record numbers of deaths due to overdose in San Francisco in 2023, or are likely to,” Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral and mental health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said at a press conference Thursday.
More than 80% of the overdose deaths in 2023 involved fentanyl, the data show. Black San Franciscans continued to make up a disproportionate share of the victims.
Even as state and local leaders have shifted their response to the growing drug crisis, focusing in recent months on increased law enforcement crackdowns, health officials remain dedicated to a multifaceted approach to saving lives.
This week, city officials announced a partnership with the National Institute of Drug Abuse that will test wastewater for certain drugs, including fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine, as well as naloxone, the opioid reversal medication most commonly known by its brand name, Narcan.
“In an era when fentanyl is claiming lives at an unprecedented rate, we need all information available to us to give us a more complete picture and guide our response,” said Jeffrey Hom, director of population behavior health for the Public Health Department. He is hopeful the data will provide “a more complete picture of the trends in drug use … allowing us to act faster when emerging substances,like xylazine, are increasing in the local drug supply.”
Xylazine, commonly known as “tranq,” has become a new concern for health officials and will be tested in wastewater under the program. The flesh-rotting drug has been linked to fatal overdoses in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and has sparked concerns that it could worsen the overdose crisis.
San Francisco officials reported that 30 of the overdose deaths so far in 2023 involved xylazine.
But fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin, continues to drive overdose deaths in San Francisco, a trend mirrored in Los Angeles and across the nation, in big cities and smaller metro areas.
In San Francisco, Black people and those experiencing homelessness died at the highest rates from drug overdoses, the report found. Almost a third of the people who died of overdose this year were Black, although Black people make up only about 7% of the city’s population.
Similarly, almost 30% of those who died of overdose in San Francisco did not have a fixed address, the report found. Of those who did have an address, the highest percentage — 21% — lived in the Tenderloin, the neighborhood that has become ground zero for the city’s exploding homelessness crisis.
The 2023 spike comes after drug overdoses in San Francisco fell slightly in the previous two years. Analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle, which tracks the city’s overdoses, found that if current trends continue, another 68 deaths could be added to the count by the end of the year.
Public health officials say they plan to continue working to expand treatment options for people with substance-use disorders, including medication-assisted treatment, increased awareness and supplies of naloxone and exploration of innovative solutions, such as contingency management programs, to help people get — and stay — off deadly drugs.
