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Newport students learn about dangers of fentanyl
NEWPORT — At 17, Sarah Nowels was the age of many students at Newport High School when she started using fentanyl.
She told them so in a speech she gave at the end of Fentanyl Awareness Day, a Thursday, Oct. 9 event organized by the National Honor Society of NHS to inform students of the dangers of fentanyl in Pend Oreille County and wider eastern Washington.
A recovering addict, Nowels was just one of the guest speakers invited to the three-hour event. Also included were Todd Krogh, a local whose son died of fentanyl poisoning; Chris Bell, NHS’ school resource officer and an officer with the Newport Police Department; and Shane Stocking, chief of South Pend Oreille Fire and Rescue.
“The reason I like sharing my story is because I was your guys’ age when I started using fentanyl. … So, it is possible,” Nowels told NHS students during her speech. “And the other thing is all drugs, it doesn’t matter what type of addiction, it can touch anybody. Addiction doesn’t care.”
Throughout the day, groups of students rotated between areas of the school to hear Nowels and other guest speakers present about fentanyl.
In the cafeteria, firefighter and EMT Derek Smith taught students what fentanyl was and what made the drug dangerous. In the courtyard by NHS’ main entrance, Bell and Stocking discussed cases where they treated overdosing fentanyl users with Narcan. And in the gymnasium where Nowels later gave her speech, Rayce Rudeen Foundation director Laci Larsen quizzed students about drugs such as fentanyl.
Other areas had other presentations still. “The information about fentanyl, it’s a lot, but it’s true,” said Alicia Cotton, a 15-year-old freshman at NHS.
Cotton was one of dozens of students in attendance on Fentanyl Awareness Day. She wants to follow her mother, a former healthcare service worker, into the medical field one day, and said it was “really nice” getting to learn more about fentanyl last Thursday afternoon.
The fact she remembers most: that 2 milligrams of fentanyl, an amount the size of a grain of salt, is enough to risk killing the user.
Also among the facts presented to Cotton and her peers were that fentanyl was produced cheaply and mixed into other drugs with no quality control, that even a dose of Narcan may not be enough to reverse overdoses on fentanyl, whose potency often requires multiple doses, and that some fake fentanyl pills look identical to real prescription medications.
“It’s in everywhere. It’s in everything,” Cotton said. “And, it can be used by anybody.”
As she listened to Nowels’ speech, Cotton said she noticed parallels between Nowels and fentanyl users from her own life. Her mother used to see users of fentanyl and other drugs every day at her workplace, and a former acquaintance of her family had been addicted to several drugs. So, she wishes for the knowledge from Fentanyl Awareness Day to be shared not just in Newport, but also in other communities.
“It’d be nice if [Fentanyl Awareness Day] was everywhere,” Cotton said.
