Two grams can kill a person.
A restaurant package of sugar has 100 grams.
The drug is an opioid, and it is 20 times more powerful than heroin.
It’s manufactured in China, shipped to Mexico and then distributed by dealers in the United States.
It killed the 15-year-old son of Janel Rodriguez, who thought he was taking Percocet.
The Downtown Rotary Club meeting on July 18 had two speakers: CPSO Capt. Bobby Herring and Janel Rodriquez.
Herring spoke on the fentanyl drug trade in the parish that started five to six years ago. Just last year, the sheriff's deputies seized over 28,000 fentanyl pills.
Herring says that drug dealers who can be associated with the sale of this drug are charged with murder if intake of the drug results in death.
Herring states that drug dealers usually mix too much fentanyl into pills that they peddle to unsuspecting users seeking a quite drug-induced high.
Herring was followed by Janel Rodriguez, who gave a somber, tearful recounting of her son's accidental death from the drug, her 15-year-old son was a football, track and football star and a member of the Honor Society. He had 8.5 mg of fentanyl in his system when he died.
Rodriguez has founded the Forever 15 Project to educate parents on the dangers of this drug. She has made over 15,000 presentations across the country to various groups.
Her presentation, complete with large, happy pictures of her son and pictures of him in a coffin, brought home the reality of this drug for the large crowd.
Narcan is promoted on TV public services announcements as an antidote to fentanyl and other opioid overdoses. Herring stated that the effectiveness of this nasal spray is limited, but it is the best available antidote on the market.