MACON, Ga. — Central Georgia officials are raising awareness of the drug fentanyl as part of National Fentanyl Awareness Day this Tuesday.
Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones and Houston County Coroner James Williams are both talking about the drug that is claiming lives in Central Georgia and across the nation.
"Fentanyl, you're hearing about it a lot," Williams said in a Facebook video. "I get asked often: 'What do we say to our youth, to our young adults, our teenagers about this danger?' My advice is 'education.'"
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid — or a laboratory-created drug that activates the same receptors in the brain as regular opioids — that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
While fentanyl can be a prescription drug that treats chronic pain for people who have developed a tolerance to regular opioids, its illegal use is causing an uptick in overdose deaths.
"We have a lot of overdoses in Bibb County, and every last overdose we have had, fentanyl is involved in that," Bibb County Coroner Jones told 13WMAZ's Central Georgia Focus. "It is combination of fentanyl, meth, and heroin, but fentanyl is always involved in that."
According to an information sheet, many overdoses are caused by fake pills or street drugs like cocaine, MDMA, and heroin that are mixed with fentanyl.
"Majority of the overdose deaths here in Houston County involving young adults and teenagers are accidental," Williams said. "These are people who maybe didn't even know they ingested fentanyl into their system."
According to Williams, there were 20 drug-related overdose deaths in Houston County 2021, but in 2022, that number increased to 35. Of those overdose deaths, two-thirds involved fentanyl with victims ranging from 15 to 73 years old.
Two grams of fentanyl can be enough to kill a person, according to Williams, which is roughly the size of two grains of salt.
Nationwide, fentanyl kills a person around every eight minutes, and an average of 175 people die every day in fentanyl overdoses, Williams said.
"These are preventable deaths," Williams said.
Because of this, Williams has this advice for local community members.
"I say to our youth and our young adults and everyone in our community: do not ingest anything into your body unless it is coming from a pharmacy or a store," Williams said. "Buying any illegal drugs off the street, you are taking a high risk of ingesting fentanyl into your body."
According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, the drug Naloxone can help reverse an opioid overdose, and it is available for purchase at many pharmacies without a prescription from a doctor.
It is also possible to get community-based organizations or local health departments to access naloxone for a reduced cost, the Georgia Department of Public Health said.
They say if you think someone is overdosing, you should apply Naloxone, because you could very well save a life.