A single fraudulent pill could contain a lethal dose of the drug fentanyl, the opioid that has caused more than 70,000 fatal overdoses.
David and Kate Gibbons received the worst news imaginable when police showed up at their door to tell them their 19-year-old daughter had died of an overdose after taking just one pill she believed was the powerful painkiller Percocet.
Tragically, the pill, purchased by a friend through social media, was actually pure fentanyl. Just two milligrams of this deadly drug (equivalent to about 15 grains of table salt) constitute a lethal dose.
The New York family said their daughter was not one to use drugs and was rarely, if ever, in trouble with her parents or the law.
Swallowing the pill was a mistake, Kate and David said, that cost him his life.
Paige Gibbons trusted the person who provided her and her friends with the fake Percocet, which was actually all fentanyl.
Her parents, shown left and third from left, said their daughter was not one to do drugs or get into trouble. Rather, it was a single mistake that ruined their lives.
Paige, a student at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, dreamed of being a doctor. She had even taken the initiative to teach life-saving CPR to the girls at her high school, purchasing female dolls with her own money.
Over the 2022 Thanksgiving holiday, she visited a friend’s house, where the group decided to try a dose of what they thought was Percocet.
Percocet is a pain reliever composed of the opioid oxycodone and acetaminophen, in Tylenol, and is known for its addictive qualities.
Most patients who are prescribed the drug take it for agonizing pain after an injury or surgery.
But an estimated 25 percent of those treated for chronic pain with a prescription opioid become addicted to their medication.
The drug is also used recreationally, as it produces a euphoric effect similar to that of heroin. Because it can be prescribed, it is common for teens to assume that the pills are safe.
Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons said they wanted to share their daughter’s story because thousands of parents have had to live it, given the extent to which fentanyl has contaminated the illicit drug supply in the United States.
Mrs. Gibbons said Fox News: ‘I can’t believe we’re still hearing people, you know, having the exact same situation.
‘I want to shout it from the mountaintops and make sure everyone knows: expect it to happen to you; Keep in mind that you will die if you try this.
Gibbons added: “It doesn’t discriminate.” Socioeconomically, race, religion. If you take a pill, you risk dying that night.
One of the friends almost died, while the third didn’t take the pill and “witnessed one of the worst things a teenager can ever witness,” according to Gibbons.
The increase in deaths is due to fentanyl, which produces a more intense high but is deadly even in small doses.
More than 6,000 New Yorkers died from fentanyl overdoses in 2023. The drug naloxone is very effective in reversing an overdose.
Dr. Chinazo Cunningham, coordinator of the New York Office of Addiction Services and Support (OASAS), said: “We know with the Internet and social media that children can get what they think are real pills, but who knows where are they manufactured or where do they come from and what do they contain?
“Fentanyl is getting into these pills and that can be deadly.”
Paramedics and good Samaritans who encounter people who overdose and administer naloxone, a life-saving medication that treats the effects of overdose, are increasingly finding that it doesn’t always work.
This is because drug enforcement officials are increasingly playing the whack-a-mole game with the emergence of new drugs in the illegal drug supply.
The latest are animal tranquilizers, such as xylazine and medetomidine.
Across the country there has been a growing number of overdoses of these medications.
The two drugs also restrict blood vessels, preventing oxygen-rich blood from reaching the skin tissues, leading to the death of skin tissue and the formation of abscesses. Some of them require amputation to combat necrosis or rotting of the flesh.
While there is no indication that the pill Ms. Gibbons took contained any of the tranquilizers, many pills in circulation do.
A CDC report found that there were a record 107,941 overdose deaths in 2022, which is the most recent data available — the equivalent of 295 deaths per day and a one percent increase from the previous year.
Fentanyl was behind nearly 70 percent of the deaths.
Broken down by age, researchers also recorded an increase of up to six percent in overdose deaths among people over 35, while they decreased in younger age groups.
The increase was greatest among people ages 55 to 64, where it rose from 45.3 to 48.1 overdose deaths per 100,000 people.
By comparison, among people ages 25 to 34, overdose deaths decreased nearly five percent over the same period to 50.6.