![[One-sentence description of what this media is: "A photo of a vaccine site on USC campus" or "Gif of dancing banana". Important for accessibility/people who use screen readers.]](https://uscannenberg-uscannenberg-prod.web.arc-cdn.net/resizer/v2/PAG4L6UZ4FBY7B3NPKDCXLECC4.jpeg?smart=true&auth=b4eb597a0d7ae9c8d522e70a78f819e76bead0e93168866af71085c5f4bbffe3&width=1360&height=765)
Two weeks ago, 15-year-old Melanie Ramos died from a fentanyl-related death. Ramos was found unresponsive in a bathroom in Hollywood’s Bernstein High School after consuming a fentanyl-laced pill. Her death was the seventh known fentanyl-related poisoning the district had seen since the semester began in August.
Following public outcry over her death, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced it will now supply naloxone to all LAUSD schools. The medication, more commonly referred to by the brand name Narcan, is used as a reversal drug for opioid-related overdoses. While there is an injectable option, LAUSD will provide the nasal form to all K-12 schools in the coming weeks.
Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed the public about the death of Ramos days after the incident.
Eric Garcetti: “On Tuesday, in our city of angels, we lost a bright, young angel who was the victim of a drug overdose... She, as well as three other young students who were hospitalized were harmed by fentanyl, a threat that is not new, but growing every single day. A cheaply made, incredibly dangerous, a deadly growing threat to our kids and to our communities peddled by predators who are distributing death. These are not overdoses, these are people who have been poisoned, these are murders.”
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in a press release on Thursday that the district will do everything in its power to combat the opioid epidemic.
In the United States, there were more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, a 15% increase from 2020. Fentanyl-related deaths accounted for 66% of these deaths.
Ricky Bluthenthal, a professor of population and public health sciences and associate dean for social justice, explained a solution for these deaths is long overdue.
Ricky Bluthenthal: A couple thousand people are dying every week in the United States from overdose deaths. And that’s been going on for ten years and we’re still not getting a response.
While the future of the opioid crisis remains unclear, the fight to end the deaths of young people at the hands of fentanyl is growing in L.A.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Colton Lucas.