In an effort to save lives, many of our valued public health, non-profit, and law enforcement partners are recognizing the first ever National Fentanyl Awareness Day. This day is an effort to educate individuals around the dangerous threat that fentanyl poses to the safety, health, and national security of the American people.
Today is national fentanyl awareness day we now continue our morning long discussion on the ongoing fentanyl crisis here in our central san joaquin valley right now we have fresno police department detective assigned to the dea task force dean cardinale good morning detective thank you for being with us morning appreciate your time tell me about fort tell us what
That is so fort uh it’s it’s called the fentanyl overdose resolution team and it’s comprised of the fresno police department the drug enforcement administration home homeland security investigations and what we do is we respond out to calls in particular with calls of overdoses fentanyl overdose and overdose deaths and the reason why we formed this team is because
About two years ago we had kids between the ages of 14 to 21 overdosing substantially so we formed this team here in fresno and and we respond out to these calls and treat them like homicide scenes how is it that uh young children uh well and people of all ages really start this overdose on it or even just start taking these pills that are laced with yeah so
Unfortunately these kids are buying this uh this this poison on snapchat social media instagram actually getting delivered to their houses uh and that’s the way they start and you know what we found over the past two years is that uh that you know they’re starting with marijuana uh then they’re transitioning into in to fake xanax xanax anti-bars and then they’re
Transitioning into these fake what’s called m30 pills or fentanyl laced uh pills and once they uh once they get started on that it’s uh just a hard road for these kids to get off of this stuff and easy to overdose absolutely yeah just one pill uh you know you can overdose just off of one pill because you don’t know how much fentanyl is in each pill these pills
Are made in clandestine labs in in mexico so you just don’t know how much fentanyl you get in each pill so how are you and your team working to let everybody know about this yeah so it’s a two-pronged thing you know we go out we investigate these cases to find out exactly who provided this poison to our kids but also we’re over there to educate the parents and the
Uh and the kids on on the dangers of fentanyl and the fourth team does probably two to three uh presentations a week in those local high schools and middle schools to also alert them to the dangers of fentanyl and one of the things that i’m i’m learning this morning is that fentanyl doesn’t you know you don’t just have fentanyl it doesn’t look like it it looks
Like something else what does it look like in most cases you know in most cases uh you know they look like fake percocet oxycontin pills uh blue and white in color m on one side 30 on the other but unfortunately we’re starting to see in everything now uh and laced in marijuana uh in cocaine and methamphetamine so today you just don’t know what you’re getting uh it
Could be laced in anything oh my goodness and so and once you get it like you said is it very addictive well it obviously can cause overdoses yeah so it’s extremely addictive you know it’s 100 times more potent than heroin so the effects uh you know what i’ve been told from our victims you know just one taking one time can can actually addict you uh on on fentanyl
But it’s also very dangerous for you i mean we’ve sadly heard many stories about officers going and uh to a scene and then falling absolutely yeah we take the the proper precautions we’ve been the classes to where you know we have uh save the equipment stuff when we uh when we enter these these uh scenes but we also have narcan and narcan reverses the effects of
An opioid overdose so we also have that on on on scene when we go out to these uh these cases is there anything you could say from your experience to parents who are watching this morning who may now be on alert about this being a possibility with their kids what would you say to them absolutely you know you have to constantly talk to your kids you know all kids
Get involved with this a lot of times we hear from the parents that says you know not my kid it’s impossible talk to your kids about you know the main about the dangers of drugs monitor their social media accounts this is where this you know this stuff is being sold and just stay in their life find out who they’re hanging around with their you know their friends
Um because you know they can make one deadly mistake uh by just taking in a pill which they thought was was harmless and you know unfortunately you know they can either overdose or die and briefly why are any of the kids saying why they took these you know a lot of times it’s just you know it’s a progression uh peer pressure um you know we’ve all you know taken
Kills at uh pills as kids and uh you know they think it’s safe uh you know in these predators that that prey on our kids that that you know that provide this stuff to our kids uh you know the kid might be having a bad day that day and they might say you know i have something to you know to cheer you up and to get you going today and it’s just as easy as that and
Once you take these pills i mean it’s sometimes you know there’s no coming back from it all right detective cardinale thank you very much are you welcome for help today absolutely trying to raise awareness about this crisis in our valley if you or someone you know uh needs help whatever kind of help it is mental health substance abuse disorder whatever call this
Number on your screen 1-800-654-3937 there are real live people who will always pick up the phone no matter the day no matter the time you
Transcribed from video
Fentanyl: How Kids Get Started w/ Dean Cardinale By KMPH FOX26 NEWS