NOEI
Naloxone Outreach and Education Initiative
A partner of the Action Lab
Mission Statement
"Our goal is to equip students and community members with the knowledge of recognizing an opioid overdose and giving them the confidence to intervene."
The Dangers of Fentanyl
Most of the increases in fentanyl deaths are not directly caused by an increase in fentanyl prescription, but because of illicitly manufactured fentanyl. Fentanyl is extremely easy to manufacture, the ingredients are easy to acquire, and a little bit goes a long way. The US Department of Justice also states that fentanyl can exist in a variety of forms and colors, which makes it easy to hide in other illicit substances. There are also recent reports across many US states of “rainbow fentanyl” which comes in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.
Illicitly manufactured fentanyl is being added to other drugs because of its extreme potency– this is making the other drugs cheaper, more powerful, more addictive, and far more dangerous. The DEA seized 9.65 million illicit pills containing fentanyl in 2021, and have already seized 85 million pills as of 2023; roughly a 780% increase in two years. This presents a problem for all Americans, but college students are a particularly vulnerable group. College is well known for creating an environment for students to grow, learn about themselves, and try new things. But the problem arises when a curious student tries a drug, unbeknownst to the lethal quantity of fentanyl inside.
Recent Statistics
We are seeing an epidemic in the United States with a national impact comparable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overdose Deaths are souring. This health crisis gained traction in 1999 and continues more than two decades later. 2018 was the first and only year to see a decrease from the year before, but by 2022 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported a over 250,000 American lives lost to a drug overdose since 2018. Between 1999 and 2021, over one million people in the United States died from a drug overdose. In 2022, 301 Americans died from a drug overdose every day– that's someone dead every 5 minutes.
Drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United states, with opioids contributing to 75% of this statistic. This is more deaths than from car crashes or guns, both homicides and suicides. The CDC describes the opioid overdose death trend as having three distinct waves. Wave one began in the 1990’s with the overprescribing of opioids for therapeutic and pain management, which rose until 2017 where it began to flatten out. Wave two began in 2010 with an increase in heroin use, due largely in part to its high availability and low price. Wave three is the one that we are experiencing today– the rise in synthetic opioids. This wave began in 2013 and continues to rise to this day.