Fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, is plaguing the country and killing some of the most vulnerable people: children and young adults. Not only are counterfeit prescription pills routinely laced with Fentanyl, but so are street drugs like cocaine and marijuana, which is killing people in masses. Feliz shares the tragic story of losing her sister, Karina, to a mass fentanyl poisoning that killed her and four other adults. Also, John, a father, says he watched both his sons overdose in his home after taking what they thought was Oxycodone but instead was a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl. One of his sons survived and shares what happened on that fatal night. (21028)
Today on an all-new dr phil this is not an overdose phenomenon this is a mass poisoning killing our kids at record levels counterfeit pills laced with lethal doses of feminine our teens are being deceived to death i wouldn’t wish this is the my worst enemy one pill one pill can kill but i don’t understand why it was me not him you can determine where you go from
Here how many of you have heard of fentanyl so everybody’s heard about it does anyone here know someone or of someone that knows someone who has died from inadvertently taking something laced with fentanyl okay look around take a second and look around and see i’m looking at an awful lot of hands up in here this is not an overdose phenomenon this is a poisoning
Phenomenon what’s happening is this is a drug that it is so powerful so strong that’s being laced into these drugs that kids are buying and they have no idea of what they’re getting they think they’re getting a and they’re getting z and they’re taking it and winding up dead and you think well why would drug dealers do that that why would they want to kill their
Customers well there’s a lot of different answers to that uh and we’re going to get into those one thing it’s highly addictive and if you can get them to take it one time they can really get hooked in a hurry this this is this is not a partisan issue this doesn’t have to do with borders this doesn’t have to do with politics this has to do with our children’s lives
And it’s poisoning it’s poisoning this isn’t about drug addiction it’s about poisoning our children it is terrifying and it is we can prevent this and that’s where we need to as community members and families and parents come together stop waiting on the government to do anything we need to come together and get stuff done well that’s right and i want to deputize
Everybody here i want to deputize everybody all of my listeners around the the country this is a call to action i want everybody to do something about this we’re going to be very specific about what that is but what do you seeing when you’re out there and this is spreading into a community it comes fast it comes hard and these kids are dying just one it doesn’t
Take but one time correct just one time and what i’m explaining to parents out there is our teens and our young adults are being deceived to death they truly are and if you think about the big picture here um americans are four percent of the the population of the world but yet we consume 80 percent of the opioids so kids today have grown up in a culture that
Appeals to can fix anything right and they see counterfeit medication prescription medication that they might have taken one time prescribed by a doctor right and they see it right on the the internet and that’s where the drug dealers are going or on social media platforms targeting youth the sons of are targeting children they’re targeting children by making
These look like little candies uh they’re targeting children there’s no two ways about it you all get that right that’s why they’re doing that they’re actually targeting children dr phil they also make it look like chalk you know chalk on the driveway so the kids get the colorful chalk and it turns out to be fentanyl derrick says poisonings killing people of all
Classes and all races this isn’t just you know they’re not targeting college kids they’re not targeting people that uh are of one particular socioeconomic strata they’re after everybody right this is they’re targeting everybody anybody that can pick these up anywhere they can go but their number one choice of audiences are teenagers young adults on social media
Platforms these drug dealers are harnessing the autonomy and not uh having any accountability their account gets canceled they open up another one there’s a foundation that has recorded 80 to 90 000 drug dealers online in the last two years my son ryan passed away november 15th of 2020 from fentanyl poisoning my son ryan took a pill and died in my arms it was
The hardest thing me and my family have ever went through losing my brother and almost losing me as well i needed something i think about when i wake up in the morning something i think about when i go to bed at night i don’t know why i was chosen and why he wasn’t and the fact that he is not going to get a whole life worth living is just it breaks my heart every
Single day and not only did it take away my son but it took away so much of me if i can reach one kid just one and prevent the same tragedy from happening to someone else then i absolutely want to do it hell how hard is it to um look at that and and think about that it’s excruciating it’s like nothing it’s i wouldn’t wish that somebody worse than me and john
What were the first signs that something terrible was happening to your sons how did how did you know i mean they had we were all watching a boxing match and they had gotten uh you know a couple of pills off of a friend that was a child childhood friend i actually saw the pills you know but they’re adults i guess he took his pill you know everything would seemed
Fine then about 15 minutes later he started talking very you know like he had no idea what he was saying and uh he just fell over at that point my son ryan was still in the room i don’t i don’t know if he had done whatever he had done yet or not uh he said he’d be right back he went upstairs i was trying to you know put water on him and you know he was still
Breathing and i went upstairs i was calling the ambulance as i went upstairs and 9-1-1 i walked into ryan’s room and he was laying on up against the wall passed out he wasn’t breathing so i’ve got both the kids so i’m trying to do cpr on him but i’m still worried about him downstairs and then they uh the paramedics came and it was uh they gave him the r10 three
A whole bunch of it three shots and uh he came back and i went upstairs and they told me ryan or i had to passed ah that’s when my uh kind of collapsed and else was kind of foggy after that you called me he said ryan’s gone and at first i was you know where where did he go and he said he died and i was uh in the hospital when i found out i uh took the pill
And walked across or stood up and was talking to my dad about what we were watching on the tv at the time and then the walls started going like this just waving and i started walking across the floor like whoa dad something’s going on here man and then i heard him say well sit down then right and then i went like and tasted it in the back of my throat because
That’s what happens when you do it and uh it was not what it was supposed to be it tasted like battery acid and everything from that i or everything after i heard him say sit down then and that happening simultaneously i i blacked out the next thing i remember is waking up all disoriented covered in sweat no glasses i could barely see it without my glasses and
I have four cops over me screaming at me saying what did you take and i’m just incoherent at first and the only thing that made me snap too was hearing one of the paramedics say well his brother’s not responding and i automatically just snap back to reality at that time it was just like what do you mean my brother’s not responding and then they’re saying you need
To go to the hospital you need to go to the hospital at first i didn’t want to i i thought i was fine even though i heard this crazy ring in my ears my veins felt like they were on fire and then i threw up and it was automatically followed by the coldest feeling i’ve ever had in my life the hottest feeling automatically followed by the coldest feeling then the
Cops brought me to the hospital they hooked me up to everything i’m sitting there i kept asking the police officer have you heard anything about my brother have you heard anything about my brother and he kept saying no no no not yet and uh i get a call from my grandmother and she called me and i was just like hello and she was just like johnny is it true i was
Just like is what true and she she was just like did we lose ryan i was just like what are you what are you talking about did we lose ryan right now you don’t have a goal you don’t have a purpose you’re not leaving the house you’re not doing anything and you need help figuring that out and i’m going to get you help to figure that out okay i’m going to get you help
That’s going to walk you through this step by step by step because you don’t have to leave tall buildings in a single bound what you have to do is set some goals and identify the steps necessary to get from where you are to where you’re going and you’ve been there you’ve looked death in the eye and these people that wonder what it’s like to take this stuff and
Go through that hell you know you just described it for people they want to know what it’s like to to play with this you you just described it for him and the bonus is you wake up and find out your brother’s dead and then you have to live with that so whatever it was that motivated the two of you to make that decision that night to take that pill you don’t get a
Do-over but you do get a second chance and you’ve got to live for you you’ve got to live for your brother and you said you knew they were taking the pill did you know where they got it yeah yeah they got it off of a childhood friend who’s now who’s now incarcerated he’s you know and i don’t believe he knew well of course he didn’t know but i don’t know what kind
Of standards you’re you’re using but they need to be raised it’s not i’ve been i have two boys and i can tell you if one of them both of them walked in the room and said hey we got a couple pills from a buddy and we’re going to take him and be like the hell you are what the hell are you talking about that’s how it started well that’s the way it needs to resume we
Need to change that right now and we need to set a new a new standard here and let’s rebuild this let’s do this a different way you can do the rest of your life with a purpose and with a plan and something you can be proud of and something your brother can be proud of and and you guys can do it together all of you can do it together and we can’t turn the clock
Back not even god can change what has happened but you can determine where you go from here you just need help getting started because you’re still grieving after two years that’s complex grief that means it’s morphed into something else and i’m not going to tell you that i know how you feel dad because i haven’t buried a son they’d have to take me to the dump
I i can’t even i’m i’m not judging you i’m not telling you i know how you feel but sometimes it’s good that i can’t be completely empathetic with you because you know it’s kind of like you fall in a hole in the forest you need somebody that’s not down in the hole that can go get a rope and pull you out and i want to be that person that gets it rope and pulls you
Out okay you guys need some help with this and i’m going to get you guys some professional help we’re going to get some planning here we’re going to do some things and get you back on track to live your life it is no honor to your brother to have this whole family come unwound let’s not let the dealers let’s not let these people that are trying to poison america
Chalk up another family they’re going to lose this fight because you’re going to win this fight thank you they got one they did they didn’t get the other and they’re not going to get this family it’s not an overdose phenomenon this is a mass poisoning counterfeit pill laced with fitment i don’t understand why it was me not him you can determine where you go from
Here all new dr phil check your local listings have a story or a question for me click the link in the description and tell me what in the world is going on
Transcribed from video
Deceived to Death: The Fentanyl Crisis in America By Dr. Phil
