In the living room of an east Petaluma home, a high school junior named Matt unzipped his backpack.
Beneath a black and lime green bucket hat, his colorful, beaded bracelets rattled as he pulled out two things he now never leaves home without: A fentanyl testing kit and an overdose reversal drug widely known as Narcan.
Since Josh, his boyfriend, died after accidentally taking fentanyl in the fall of 2020, Matt, 17, has carried the critical supplies with him wherever he goes, “Even if I’m going to the store.”
So do most of Matt’s friends.
Several of them agreed to speak to a reporter on the condition that only their first names be used to protect themselves from future internet searches.
As Matt demonstrated in mid-March how the test kit is used to detect even trace amounts of the deadly substance, Josh’s mom, Shannon, ventured a question.
“Have you had occasion to use that?” she asked.
Matt said he had — multiple times, and the kit has often detected fentanyl in recreational drugs he and others were planning to use.
“And what was the choice that you made when you saw that it was laced?”
“I personally didn’t do it, I could not help if others did — because that was their choice,” Matt said.
Even trace amounts of the substance, which is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, can be deadly. But the killer drug’s danger also lies in its ubiquity. Sonoma County health officials say it’s present in 90% of black market drugs, and almost all of the heroin found in the county.
In the 18 months since Josh died, those closest to the former Casa Grande High School junior have been beset by grief and guilt. They’ve also come to grips with two now-universal truths in the midst of the fentanyl-driven third wave of the nation’s opioid crisis.
The first, Shannon said, is that things will never be the same as before. The second is the piece of knowledge that might have spared her son.
“Assume everything you get on the street is laced with fentanyl,” she said.
Troubling trend
The story of Josh’s death comes at a time when authorities are sounding the alarm around the rising number of fentanyl deaths, including among juveniles who are more exposed to the deadly drug than ever.
Since 2017, Sonoma County has tracked more than 500 overdose deaths, including 173 in 2020. At least 70% of those deaths were linked to fentanyl, according to county data. And while just seven of those 500 deaths have been people younger than 18, more than half of those deaths have come in the past two years, including two in Petaluma.
Petaluma Police Lt. Nick McGowan has watched the rise of opioid abuse in southern Sonoma County for the better part of a decade. The appearance of fentanyl about four or five years ago, though, marked a troubling new era in the fight.
Packed into counterfeit medications and spliced in low doses into recreational drugs, fentanyl has allowed dealers to cut their wares while maximizing profits, said McGowan, who oversees the Petaluma Police Department’s response to community health and substance abuse, among other duties.
“As you cut the particular drug, the toxicity will be diminished,” McGowan said, explaining how fentanyl plays into a multinational drug supply chain. “I can cut it multiple times, and add a little bit of fentanyl — it’s a way to maximize the quantity of the drug.”
The fentanyl-laced illicit drugs most often used in California make their way into the state from Mexico, where factory labs churn out the supply to meet stateside demand. Outside of the hundreds of deaths attributed to the drug locally, police and first responders have seen other impacts firsthand.
At a recent panel discussion on increased alcohol and drug use in Petaluma, McGowan said Petaluma first responders administered naloxone 35 times in 2021.
Just last weekend, Petaluma Police were forced to administer naloxone, the generic form of Narcan, after a local man, believing he was using cocaine, snorted a substance now thought to be fentanyl, McGowan said.
When it comes to combating fentanyl use among youth, McGowan said, education is key.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: