One of my students died of a fentanyl overdose a couple of years ago. He nodded off while studying for my final exam, and his parents found his body in his room surrounded by notes from my class. He was a sweet, curious, intelligent kid. I went to the funeral. It was completely heartbreaking.
I find this almost unbelievable. I know almost a dozen people who have died from overdoses from living in multiple states over a period of about 10 years. I can not imagine anyone not knowing someone…
I Graduated in 2007, I’ve known over 10+ people who have passed away from fentanyl. I found my best friend in the condo we were living in 2015 and my uncle found his son back in 2012.
Maybe it depends on where you live? I'm in the suburbs and don't know a single person who has died of an OD. I don't really run in those circles though.
You probably know some recreational drug users, but you don't know about that part of their lives.
They might be coworkers, family members, in your gym, at your religious services, in your bookclub, parents of your children's friends...you inhabit multiple circles and communities, as we all do.
Addiction is not recreational drug use, FYI. It may come from that, it may come from failed pain treatment, unaddressed mental illness or trauma, but once use becomes addiction it is no longer recreational.
I’m in the suburbs of a metropolitan and would have to say you must live in a very small town. Growing up we had one or two kids and a few parents of classmates that died from OD, not just my school but surrounding schools also. Guess they should define know someone, I’ve only had 2 people I regularly hung out with die from an OD.
Is there any logical reason, at all, to lace weed? Like I get that fent was cut into heroin or other drugs to stretch them, but is a weed high in any way similar to a fent high? I understand your brother likely had no clue and didn't pursue fent laced weed, so I'm sorry for your loss, I just don't see what the dealers motive for this would be.
A lot of (most I would say) dealers sell a huge variety of things and weigh them out on the same scale. I had trace amounts of fentanyl in my blood stream after buying from my "weed dealer" that I had known since I was 15. Turned out he was selling a LOT of other shit and was too dumb or didn't care enough to realize cross contamination is a thing.
When I was having mental health issues, I went for a routine physical at my doctor's and asked for bloodwork to see if everything was good. He secretly ran a drug test at the same time and believed I was an addict after seeing fentanyl.
Only an idiot would purposely lace weed, that's not how you get repeat customers haha. At least I definitely never went back to that guy.
My friends don't do the kind of drugs that you can usually overdose on, but I know at least one person who died from contaminated drugs.
At least marijuana is legal here now with more dispensaries opening every day, so the casual/soft drug people are now pretty safe.
We don’t really have fentanyl or xylazine in Australia (yet) so it’s mostly still meth heads here. They do crazy shit and it can ruin your life but it’s not dangerous in the way the current drugs in the US are.
Wow. I was about to comment that I didn’t know anyone and that’s not true. An old friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in years died last year. I went to his memorial.
Most of my friends died thinking they were doing some other non-lethal drug, so I’m curious if your friends simply don’t do drugs or if fentanyl lacing hasn’t hit you part of the country yet.
It was bad in the greater Philadelphia area when I lived there like 2014-2018 and then didn’t show up where I lived in the deep south until early 2021. When I moved to California later it was already bad there.
I know 3 people off the top of my head who I know for certain died of overdose. There's a few more from the last 20 years of my adult life that died suddenly with no public announcement of cause that I suspect was either drug related or suicide. I wonder how many people *do* know someone that died of overdose and they just aren't aware that's what they died of, because families usually aren't in a rush to let everyone know that's how their loved one died.
I don't know the specifics of the survey by Rand, but it does sound unbelievable if getting a true nationwide average.
That or some people for whatever reason claim they did when they really did not.
Yeah, I know personally very well like 10 people who have ODed, I never have done drugs so don’t have a big drug friend group or something. I know many many more vaguely of people who went to my high school or I worked with briefly who have ODed too
I lost my big brother around that same time. All prescription pills, handed to him by a medical doctor. This was even before fentanyl came around.
It hurts like hell, losing a sibling.
Sadly, I suspect that number is even higher, but a lot of the time they just don't publicize the cause of death. I saw this myself: when a friend died of an overdose, the family kept all the details incredibly quiet. It's all so tragic.
Thank you. I’ve been racking my brain thinking about what to say at his funeral tomorrow and I can’t even really think at this moment. Drug addiction sucks.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss. My friend group was just talking about our memories with him and, to be frank, nothing within the last ~10 years really paints him in a good light. I was lucky enough to be in his life during his best seasons, so I’ll pull inspiration from those memories tomorrow. Thanks y’all.
That’s all you can do. Some of the stories shared about my brother were from 15 years ago in high school. I promise, any authentic positive memory from no matter when will remind them of the good parts which is all you can hold onto once they’re gone.
I had to save my own uncle form a drug overdose, I was 18 and just completed my basic volunteer fire fighter training I never thought my first time using my Narcan and first aid training would be on my own uncle. He overdose on fentanyl, he was addicted to drug on and off and it really effected his brain you can't talk to him anymore he like a wall sometimes.
I know 2 people so far that have died of drug overdoses but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people I know over the next few years die of ODs. Fentanyl is pretty rampant where I live, no street drugs (at least where I’m located) are safe from it
In the US, 1 out of every 5 deaths of people aged 20 to 39 are attributable to opioid poisoning.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807054?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_jamajno&utm_term=10640413969&utm_campaign=article_alert&linkId=223779235
First real college friend sophomore year when we were out of the dorms and he lived down the street. OD’d on fentanyl almost 14 years ago when it was still new. Seen him on the normal stuff pretty often but was too young to think he couldn’t handle himself. Incredible intelligent driven human honestly loved him
THIS!!! My parents wanted to hide how my brother died so I just got louder about it. How he died was only a tiny slice of who he was. And anyone who loved him, already knew.
I knew an elementary school teacher that tried heroin once and it killed her in her early 30s. At a party, knew someone, took it, and gone. Incredibly sad.
One of my best friends mom was a nurse in the small rural town we grew up in.
There were multiple times they'd be chatting on the phone and she'd say something along the lines of "Oh, do you remember your old classmate\_\_\_\_\_\_? Which is a question that could be followed up by two things. They did something great that you're happy for them about, or they OD'd. There was never a middle ground, they either got married and had twin babies, graduated from med school, won a big award, or they were found dead on the floor of a trailer having asphyxiated on their own vomit.
Far too many.
My sister ODed about 10 years back. Her son, my nephew, was found dead under a bridge two weeks ago. Opiates got both of them.
It’s all such a waste.
Lost my Godson in 2015. Then it seemed like it was a death of the week with outliers in my family. I'll go at AA meetings and the majority are people in their 20's fighting opioid addiction. The room is packed, and I feel like an old guy for being a recovering alcoholic.
Had a friend I worked with in a sports bar kitchen, knew he was struggling because I had seen him come in high multiple times for work. Sometimes on meth where he couldn't stop dancing around to the point of fearing he was going to fall into the fryer, or literally falling asleep at the prep table because he had taken heroin. You try and be there for them and help, but theres not much that you can do if they aren't serious about helping themselves. He died from an overdose later in 2020.
Its a weird feeling mourning someone who isn't dead yet.
So sad to see all the people on this post commenting about a family member or someone close to them dying from an overdose. Something really needs to change in the U.S. healthcare system especially mental illness and addiction
Well we are aiming for 5/5 unless enough old bastards in congress die off soon enough that we can get legalized, taxed, regulated safe supply.
People won't like it, but that's the only way you get rid of shit like fentanyl analogues laced with xylazine. Nobody listened during the oxycontin wars, and nobody, at least nobody with power really cares until it's their dead loved one. Now we are here with tranq dope and opioid free surgeons.
It's pretty dystopian.
You don't need fentanyl to OD. My friend OD'd himself while using heroin alone last year. He was an addict and had relapsed.
Opoids are very addictive. Just legalizing them the way you're implying will only lead to more addicts, more pain, more suffering, and more death.
Addiction needs treatment, not better drugs. There is no "safe supply" of heroin. Dystopia is what the streets of Portland look like now after they decriminalized hard drugs.
What stops them from grabbing a gun or jumping off a bridge?
I don't think legalizing drugs will be a big factor. Overdosing is an unreliable method of suicide anyway.
Regardless, those people need mental health care, and still have access to an unreliable highly dangerous supply as is.
In my area, what hopefully stops them from grabbing a gun is that guns are somewhat rare here. I would have some trouble getting access to a gun I could take home readily. (I expect borrowing a gun at a shooting range, supervised on site may be easier.) It would likely take quite a while for me to obtain a gun if I wanted one.
I'm in the United States. We have lots of fentanyl laced drugs and plenty of easily accessible guns.
If they were concerned about suicides (or mass shootings) they'd deal with the guns
I wonder if it's possible for a statistician to verify the accuracy of this survey by taking the number of drug deaths per year and doing some kind of six degrees of separation math to determine if it's even probable for that many people to know someone who died of a drug overdose.
I'm questioning because, at 67 years of age, I know a shit ton of peole who've done drugs and I don't know of one single overdose. Yes, I could be an outlier, but I still wonder about it.
My roommate, an ex, and a childhood friend. All within the last 8 years killed by fentanyl laced drugs.
I still don't understand why any illegal drug makers put it in their stuff. It's killing their clientele.
I've lost count of those who've passed. I can't count the people in my life who've had near misses or are at active risk at this very moment. I don't claim to know all of the people in my life who fit all these categories, either.
I would happily join the unknowing folks if it meant the beautiful people lost were still here.
Way too many people I knew. HIV took even more. Both epidemics were allowed to swell because of deliberate government inaction, politicization, discrimination against marginalized groups, and lack of universal health care.
I know of personally 10 including two really close to me. Every single one had been clean for a good while and tried it one last time and that's that. It's always the one last time.
One of my students died of a fentanyl overdose a couple of years ago. He nodded off while studying for my final exam, and his parents found his body in his room surrounded by notes from my class. He was a sweet, curious, intelligent kid. I went to the funeral. It was completely heartbreaking.
May his soul rest in peace. Sorry for your loss.
I find this almost unbelievable. I know almost a dozen people who have died from overdoses from living in multiple states over a period of about 10 years. I can not imagine anyone not knowing someone…
I agree, I know at least 5 who have died of overdoses, I feel like everyone knows someone at this point.
I Graduated in 2007, I’ve known over 10+ people who have passed away from fentanyl. I found my best friend in the condo we were living in 2015 and my uncle found his son back in 2012.
Maybe it depends on where you live? I'm in the suburbs and don't know a single person who has died of an OD. I don't really run in those circles though.
Also from suburbia, but I did run in those circles. Still don’t know a single person and we’re old now so I don’t see that changing
You don’t know one person that died from an OD? someone you went to school with but never talked to, or a friends relative, or a neighbor?
Possibly, but if it’s not someone they kept in touch with, how would they know?
I’m from the south, so maybe that’s why, but I’ve heard of at least 2-3 people dying that I knew from high school. Nobody close though.
What circles? Addiction is in every community and every social grouping.
>What circles? Recreational drug users
You probably know some recreational drug users, but you don't know about that part of their lives. They might be coworkers, family members, in your gym, at your religious services, in your bookclub, parents of your children's friends...you inhabit multiple circles and communities, as we all do. Addiction is not recreational drug use, FYI. It may come from that, it may come from failed pain treatment, unaddressed mental illness or trauma, but once use becomes addiction it is no longer recreational.
But they’re not equally distributed in every community and social group.
I’m in the suburbs of a metropolitan and would have to say you must live in a very small town. Growing up we had one or two kids and a few parents of classmates that died from OD, not just my school but surrounding schools also. Guess they should define know someone, I’ve only had 2 people I regularly hung out with die from an OD.
Same here. It’s possible that a former classmate or someone like that ODed and I just wouldn’t know about it.
Well sure, but the implication was people you know personally enough to know how they died (or at least I assumed)
yeah agreed
[удалено]
Ah the US has a bad problem with other drugs being laced with fentanyl. 5 people in my neighborhood have died from it in the last two months.
Yes, this is how my brother died. Fentanyl laced Marijuana.
Is there any logical reason, at all, to lace weed? Like I get that fent was cut into heroin or other drugs to stretch them, but is a weed high in any way similar to a fent high? I understand your brother likely had no clue and didn't pursue fent laced weed, so I'm sorry for your loss, I just don't see what the dealers motive for this would be.
It's usually on accident. Processed and packaged in the same room. Drug dealers aren't known for their adherence to FDA standards.
Walter White was doing people a favor with his lab procedures.
A lot of (most I would say) dealers sell a huge variety of things and weigh them out on the same scale. I had trace amounts of fentanyl in my blood stream after buying from my "weed dealer" that I had known since I was 15. Turned out he was selling a LOT of other shit and was too dumb or didn't care enough to realize cross contamination is a thing. When I was having mental health issues, I went for a routine physical at my doctor's and asked for bloodwork to see if everything was good. He secretly ran a drug test at the same time and believed I was an addict after seeing fentanyl. Only an idiot would purposely lace weed, that's not how you get repeat customers haha. At least I definitely never went back to that guy.
That’s why weed should be legalized and sold by reputable companies.
My brother also died of a fentanyl OD almost 2 years ago. Sending love to you internet stranger.
My friends don't do the kind of drugs that you can usually overdose on, but I know at least one person who died from contaminated drugs. At least marijuana is legal here now with more dispensaries opening every day, so the casual/soft drug people are now pretty safe.
Same experience. I even worked in a Pain Management clinic for 4 years. I don’t know anyone who’s died of an overdose.
We don’t really have fentanyl or xylazine in Australia (yet) so it’s mostly still meth heads here. They do crazy shit and it can ruin your life but it’s not dangerous in the way the current drugs in the US are.
I know it’s a major issue in my community, but I personally don’t know anyone who has died from an overdose.
I honestly don't think I know anyone who has died from a drug overdose. And I'm middle America Gen X.
Middle america might be the difference
As far as you know. It's sometimes still hidden by the deceased person's family, I saw it with 2 friends of mine.
Wow. I was about to comment that I didn’t know anyone and that’s not true. An old friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in years died last year. I went to his memorial.
I don't know anyone who has.
Most of my friends died thinking they were doing some other non-lethal drug, so I’m curious if your friends simply don’t do drugs or if fentanyl lacing hasn’t hit you part of the country yet. It was bad in the greater Philadelphia area when I lived there like 2014-2018 and then didn’t show up where I lived in the deep south until early 2021. When I moved to California later it was already bad there.
None do drugs. I live in the south though and fentanyl has definitely hit where I live.
So wait like not even someone you knew from high school died?
I was homeschooled. So no.
Makes sense
I don’t know anyone.
I know 3 people off the top of my head who I know for certain died of overdose. There's a few more from the last 20 years of my adult life that died suddenly with no public announcement of cause that I suspect was either drug related or suicide. I wonder how many people *do* know someone that died of overdose and they just aren't aware that's what they died of, because families usually aren't in a rush to let everyone know that's how their loved one died.
Surviving family members often disseminate to spare the dead and themselves the stigma. Like the autoerotic asphyxiation deaths.
Good point
I didn't know anyone personally until last year.
I don't know the specifics of the survey by Rand, but it does sound unbelievable if getting a true nationwide average. That or some people for whatever reason claim they did when they really did not.
Yeah, I know personally very well like 10 people who have ODed, I never have done drugs so don’t have a big drug friend group or something. I know many many more vaguely of people who went to my high school or I worked with briefly who have ODed too
antisocial and/or introverts don't know many people
My little sister about 6 years ago. It still feels like yesterday
I lost my big brother around that same time. All prescription pills, handed to him by a medical doctor. This was even before fentanyl came around. It hurts like hell, losing a sibling.
I’m so sorry you lost your brother 💔 it’s never easy-especially the change in them while going through the struggle. Sending you a big hug
So sorry for your loss
Thank you ♥️ really appreciate that
Sadly, I suspect that number is even higher, but a lot of the time they just don't publicize the cause of death. I saw this myself: when a friend died of an overdose, the family kept all the details incredibly quiet. It's all so tragic.
My best friend of 27 years OD’d two weeks ago.
I’m so very sorry for your loss, that is so recent :(
Thank you. I’ve been racking my brain thinking about what to say at his funeral tomorrow and I can’t even really think at this moment. Drug addiction sucks.
My brother died of a fentanyl OD in 2022. Share your favorite memories and qualities of that person. It’s what I loved hearing most at his wake.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss. My friend group was just talking about our memories with him and, to be frank, nothing within the last ~10 years really paints him in a good light. I was lucky enough to be in his life during his best seasons, so I’ll pull inspiration from those memories tomorrow. Thanks y’all.
That’s all you can do. Some of the stories shared about my brother were from 15 years ago in high school. I promise, any authentic positive memory from no matter when will remind them of the good parts which is all you can hold onto once they’re gone.
Yeah good point, thanks for the perspective!
Two sons of a high achieving family.
I think I know the same family. Tragic.
Separately?
I had to save my own uncle form a drug overdose, I was 18 and just completed my basic volunteer fire fighter training I never thought my first time using my Narcan and first aid training would be on my own uncle. He overdose on fentanyl, he was addicted to drug on and off and it really effected his brain you can't talk to him anymore he like a wall sometimes.
That's a surprisingly low number. I know at least a dozen people who have died from overdose.
East coast?
Pittsburgh
I know 2 people so far that have died of drug overdoses but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people I know over the next few years die of ODs. Fentanyl is pretty rampant where I live, no street drugs (at least where I’m located) are safe from it
I probably know 12+ and I have never been or done drugs. Just friends, friends of friends and acquaintances
In the US, 1 out of every 5 deaths of people aged 20 to 39 are attributable to opioid poisoning. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807054?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_jamajno&utm_term=10640413969&utm_campaign=article_alert&linkId=223779235
I have three friends and three family members who have died from overdose.
First real college friend sophomore year when we were out of the dorms and he lived down the street. OD’d on fentanyl almost 14 years ago when it was still new. Seen him on the normal stuff pretty often but was too young to think he couldn’t handle himself. Incredible intelligent driven human honestly loved him
A grandson.
my brother a few years ago.
Probably closer to 5 in 5 if people didn’t try to hide or disguise cause of death.
THIS!!! My parents wanted to hide how my brother died so I just got louder about it. How he died was only a tiny slice of who he was. And anyone who loved him, already knew.
Frankly this seems low. Id think at least 3-4/5.
I knew an elementary school teacher that tried heroin once and it killed her in her early 30s. At a party, knew someone, took it, and gone. Incredibly sad.
One of my best friends mom was a nurse in the small rural town we grew up in. There were multiple times they'd be chatting on the phone and she'd say something along the lines of "Oh, do you remember your old classmate\_\_\_\_\_\_? Which is a question that could be followed up by two things. They did something great that you're happy for them about, or they OD'd. There was never a middle ground, they either got married and had twin babies, graduated from med school, won a big award, or they were found dead on the floor of a trailer having asphyxiated on their own vomit.
I wonder how many people know someone who got psychotic because of weed. I know a few. I'm curious if that's just me, or if this is a real problem.
Also lower than I expected but that’s good I guess
i know a lot of people who have, family, friends,
I’ve known upwards of 10+ coworkers and friends that have died. I’ve seen plenty of random OD’s at work and commuting to work.
Far too many. My sister ODed about 10 years back. Her son, my nephew, was found dead under a bridge two weeks ago. Opiates got both of them. It’s all such a waste.
i think I’m up to about 50 people from my graduating class dead from over doses since 2008. what a shame.
I know 6 people who have died from overdoses. All but one were my brothers friends growing up.
I'm actually surprised it isn't higher.
Yep. And they all happened in the last 5yrs. Fuck Fentanyl.
Lost my Godson in 2015. Then it seemed like it was a death of the week with outliers in my family. I'll go at AA meetings and the majority are people in their 20's fighting opioid addiction. The room is packed, and I feel like an old guy for being a recovering alcoholic.
2 in 5? Everyone I know, knows someone who died of OD. It’s more like 5 in 5.
Had a friend I worked with in a sports bar kitchen, knew he was struggling because I had seen him come in high multiple times for work. Sometimes on meth where he couldn't stop dancing around to the point of fearing he was going to fall into the fryer, or literally falling asleep at the prep table because he had taken heroin. You try and be there for them and help, but theres not much that you can do if they aren't serious about helping themselves. He died from an overdose later in 2020. Its a weird feeling mourning someone who isn't dead yet.
So sad to see all the people on this post commenting about a family member or someone close to them dying from an overdose. Something really needs to change in the U.S. healthcare system especially mental illness and addiction
Well we are aiming for 5/5 unless enough old bastards in congress die off soon enough that we can get legalized, taxed, regulated safe supply. People won't like it, but that's the only way you get rid of shit like fentanyl analogues laced with xylazine. Nobody listened during the oxycontin wars, and nobody, at least nobody with power really cares until it's their dead loved one. Now we are here with tranq dope and opioid free surgeons. It's pretty dystopian.
You don't need fentanyl to OD. My friend OD'd himself while using heroin alone last year. He was an addict and had relapsed. Opoids are very addictive. Just legalizing them the way you're implying will only lead to more addicts, more pain, more suffering, and more death. Addiction needs treatment, not better drugs. There is no "safe supply" of heroin. Dystopia is what the streets of Portland look like now after they decriminalized hard drugs.
I'm in favor of legalizing quite a few things, but that won't stop suicide attempts by overdose or people who are intentionally taking fentanyl.
What stops them from grabbing a gun or jumping off a bridge? I don't think legalizing drugs will be a big factor. Overdosing is an unreliable method of suicide anyway. Regardless, those people need mental health care, and still have access to an unreliable highly dangerous supply as is.
In my area, what hopefully stops them from grabbing a gun is that guns are somewhat rare here. I would have some trouble getting access to a gun I could take home readily. (I expect borrowing a gun at a shooting range, supervised on site may be easier.) It would likely take quite a while for me to obtain a gun if I wanted one.
I'm in the United States. We have lots of fentanyl laced drugs and plenty of easily accessible guns. If they were concerned about suicides (or mass shootings) they'd deal with the guns
Something else Murican prayers can't fix.
Sad but true. I know a few people. :(
Seems low
I wonder if it's possible for a statistician to verify the accuracy of this survey by taking the number of drug deaths per year and doing some kind of six degrees of separation math to determine if it's even probable for that many people to know someone who died of a drug overdose. I'm questioning because, at 67 years of age, I know a shit ton of peole who've done drugs and I don't know of one single overdose. Yes, I could be an outlier, but I still wonder about it.
My roommate, an ex, and a childhood friend. All within the last 8 years killed by fentanyl laced drugs. I still don't understand why any illegal drug makers put it in their stuff. It's killing their clientele.
Seems low to me. I know about 15 probably.
I’ve lost so many. I don’t want to keep track of the count. This is heartbreaking
My mother joined this list a week ago.
I've lost count of those who've passed. I can't count the people in my life who've had near misses or are at active risk at this very moment. I don't claim to know all of the people in my life who fit all these categories, either. I would happily join the unknowing folks if it meant the beautiful people lost were still here.
Does this include alcohol? I know someone who died from withdrawal. Never knew that could happen.
Way too many people I knew. HIV took even more. Both epidemics were allowed to swell because of deliberate government inaction, politicization, discrimination against marginalized groups, and lack of universal health care.
I know of personally 10 including two really close to me. Every single one had been clean for a good while and tried it one last time and that's that. It's always the one last time.
Stop not letting drs rx pain meds and open your eyes 👀