Exciting news! This week marks the start of screenings for Screenagers Under The Influence, which will be showing in many locations nationwide. I am personally attending one tonight in the SF Bay Area. (Watch our new trailer here.)

I have only watched a couple of movies recently because things have been so busy with finishing our new film. I was shocked that in two of the last films I watched, the characters take MDMA — also known as Molly and Ecstasy.  I remember watching parts of the original White Lotus series last year, and the teen girls in the show take many drugs, including snorting ketamine. And there’s Euphoria…

When I was growing up, we never had this level of exposure in shows to hard drugs like our kids do today. We also did not have fentanyl. This human-made opioid is an extremely dangerous substance because the tiniest amount can be lethal. Because it is so potent, people who make drugs to sell know they can just add a small amount to a binder, and voila, they have a drug to sell — and they don’t say it has fentanyl, often just telling their customers it is Oxycodone or Ativan, etc. 

In Screenagers Under The Influence, we examine the scary reality that people use apps, such as Discord and Snapchat, to reach young people in the hopes of selling them drugs. They might advertise they are selling Oxycodone, Ativan, or some other substance. The buyer has no idea that many of these are not what the sellers claim but instead are fake/counterfeit pills and that part of what they have in them is fentanyl. 

In our new movie, you see a shocking moment when you see two grains of fentanyl, and the expert explains that it is enough to kill two people. 

Many college students I talk with tell me their peers use test kits to test drugs for fentanyl. Some even bring Narcan with them to parties or concerts for extra insurance. Ingestion of opioids carries the risk of suppressing respirations so profoundly that a person can die, and Narcan if given in time, prevents opioids from doing this. 

Last week, Narcan became available for over-the-counter purchase. It no longer needs a prescription. It is a very safe medicine; having it more widely available is important.

My son, Chase, who is in college, was devastated when in his sophomore year, a student he knew died from an opioid overdose. He and other students petitioned the college to have Narcan available throughout the campus. Sadly, the college said no. Chase and some other students then found an organization in town that showed them how to use Narcan and gave them some. 

We must talk with our kids about opioids, fentanyl, and Narcan, and I suggest these three points to start with:

1. Never take pills that a person gives you. A pill can be laced with fentanyl, and this can be lethal. 
2. Do not buy drugs from anyone, online or in person.
3. Watch a video together, such as this one, about administering Narcan. Doing this really drives home the point about the potential lethality of opioids. 

Questions to get the conversation started:

1. What shows have we watched that showed or mentioned drugs such as opioids, methamphetamine, MDMA, and others — all of which can be laced with Fentanyl?
2. Ask your kids whether they’ve had any talks at school about opioids. You might want to let them know that more than 100,000 people are dying each year due to overdoses.
3. Have you had talks at school specifically about fentanyl and its lethal potential?
4. Let’s watch this video about using Narcan.

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As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel