The dangers that fentanyl can pose to young people in Arizona were the subject of a recent meeting of the Arizona Parents Commission on Drug Education and Prevention.

One of the topics was “One Pill Can Kill,” referring to the potency of fentanyl.

The “One Pill Can Kill” Campaign is a program the Drug Enforcement Administration started to raise awareness in the youth especially the harms of drugs. This program’s main objective is to tell kids to not even try it because it is not worth risking your life. They advertise that you truly never know if anything could be laced or counterfeit and it is not worth testing.

With the “One Pill Can Kill” campaign in place, officials hope to lower the number of overdoses year by year and raise awareness to what is happening in local neighborhoods.

The program urges people to only take prescription medication that has been prescribed by a medical professional and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist.

This program was brought to the Arizona Parents Commission on Drug Education and
Prevention, which is made of parents appointed by Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, law enforcement officers and commissioners who represent community members.

“One Pill Can Kill” raises awareness for parents and kids to get educated on the risks of taking drugs off the street. The DEA and National Guard mainly talk about the lacing epidemic and how counterfeit pills can be laced with all sorts of things such as fentanyl, heroin and lethal doses of many other things. This campaign started the conversation between kids and parents on the dangers of taking fake pills from friends or hitting pens such as vapes and marijuana.

Audra Littler, a 19-year-old who graduated from American Leadership Academy in Queen
Creek, spoke about her experience in school with seeing fellow students affected by fentanyl overdoses and drug use.

Littler also explained how seeing it first hand made her change her perspective, especially seeing a 13-year-old boy die from accidentally having a dose of it.

“I was so devastated for this kid and for his family, and that they have to go through something like this, it is just a tragedy.” Said Littler.

With this program, the Parents Commission partners with the DEA and National Guard to raise awareness throughout the state within schools and neighborhoods to hopefully teach kids and parents about the dangers of taking drugs even once or how small of a dose it takes to kill.

DEA Special Agent Jodie Underwood spoke about the impact youth can gain from this program.

“DEA created social media resources to help raise public awareness about the dangers of social media and to bring awareness to the significant nationwide surge and counter pills. These pills are being masked produced and illicit laboratories and our deceptively market as legitimate pills are killing Americans at an unprecedented rate.” said Underwood.

In this meeting with the commission, Chair Denise Beagley raised an important question about the statistics.

“We’re over 100,000 deaths now with fentanyl, what is it in Arizona?” Beagley asked.

Staff Sgt. Debroah Stokes with the National Guard, who also presented in front of the board then responded with, “As of 2024 we have 636, and that’s fatal overdoses.” said Stokes.

As a result, the DEA has been doing many presentations within the Phoenix area such as Red Ribbon Week where they team with the National Guard, DEA teen academy where local teens come for a workshop and learn about the dangers that happen locally and much more.

Nimrita Thiara is a studen at the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix.