Small Pill, Big Problem: The opioid crisis still affects communities today as opioid-related deaths decrease in Kansas due to improved treatments and grant funding

Cooper Davis, high schooler at Mill Valley, was 16 years old when he and his friends decided to split a Percocet pill they bought on social media. They didn’t know it contained a deadly amount of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

His friends had symptoms of the poisoning and survived while Cooper didn’t. 

A year later, Cooper’s parents, Randy Davis and his wife, Libby Davis, created Keepin’ Clean for Coop, a non-profit organization for awareness about fentanyl and drug use.

“We decided that we wanted to work on making other people aware of [fentanyl] and getting this information out so that we could help prevent someone else from having to go through what we did with our family,” Randy said.

Deaths from opioids — a class of drugs to relieve pain — including overdoses from addiction or accidental poisoning have decreased by 23% since 2023, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Improving treatments and grant funding have contributed to this decrease, according to Dr. Karen Moeller, a psychiatry-specialized clinical professor in pharmacy at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Part of the decrease in opioid-related deaths can be attributed to the availability of naloxone, or Narcan, a medicine that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, according to Jennifer Clarke, team leader of Adolescent Outpatient Addiction Services at JCMHC. 

Originally only available as prescription, Narcan became over-the-counter in 2023, and is available for free in bus stop vending machines and public libraries. The fourth-floor nurses’ office at SM East always has Narcan available in case of a potential overdose on campus and the school resource officers always carry Narcan on duty. 

Narcan has been administered at East in the past, according to nurse Stephanie Ptacek, but she didn’t disclose the exact number.

“It’s a very good idea for anyone to carry Narcan, just like they would any sort of first-aid kit, because we just never know,” Clarke said.

Even with the availability of Narcan, Kansas is still struggling with the opioid crisis, according to Randy.

“I think it’s gotten better, but I don’t think it would hurt to have more [awareness],” Randy said. “And I think Johnson County Mental Health has really jumped on board.”

Johnson County Mental Health Center Community Prevention Manager Sierra Wright and her prevention team started an awareness campaign for teens called “You Never Know” a year ago, in collaboration with Randy and Libby.

A week ago, Keepin’ Clean for Coop hosted a drug talk at Blue Valley Schools’ Hilltop Conference Center to educate parents about teaching their kids the dangers of fentanyl and how to prevent future spikes in opioid-related deaths as seen from 2020-23. In honor of Cooper, they host an annual 5k coming up on June 14 at Mill Valley, Cooper’s high school.

“I think that we’re starting to see a little bit improvement with awareness, because that’s the main thing to really help this problem,” Randy said. “Because the pills and a lot of that stuff are already here. So when it’s already here, it’s hard to get rid of it. So you need to make people aware.”

In the case of a student overdosing on campus, Principal Jason Peres explains that whoever is present at the scene would call the nurse and SROs to administer Narcan, and then they call 911.

School Resource Officer Anthony Woollen believes students now are more careful of taking opioids. This is because awareness at East has been increasing due to the Parent Teacher Association opioid prevention presentations before homecoming and SRO Q-and-As during the CPR unit in health classes.

“The fear factor of taking a pill with maybe something like fentanyl in it, I think there’s a big percentage of our kids that take that to heart and don’t want to take something that’s going to kill them,” Woollen said.

With increased awareness surrounding opioid-use, JCMHC received a total of $500,000 in Kansas Fights Addiction grants in January and February.

The funds will support treatments and awareness campaigns like their nine-week classes that started in March. Here, they teach parents in Johnson County to recognize signs that indicate their teen may be struggling with opioid use.

Moeller says the main symptoms to look for are little changes in behavior, such as teens not getting their school work done or physical changes like becoming pale, tired or always going to the bathroom.

The grants to JCMHC will also help fund one-hour counseling sessions for families in Johnson County with teens who struggle with addiction.

“[Counseling sessions] really helps youth and just people struggling with opioid use, in a way, feel seen,” Clarke said. “[…] We can sit there with someone and say ‘We understand you’re struggling, we understand that this is a difficult substance to stop using, here are some resources for you.’”

JCMHC provides classes for parents about how they can communicate with their teens effectively and de-escalate heated situations, while recognizing that parenting is hard. This way parents can help their teens cope with anxiety and avoid turning to opioids that may lead to addiction.

Wright explains that current students may use opioids because they want to numb pressures to perform well at school. This may cause them to buy pills online thinking they’re regular prescription pills as most teens who’ve died from fentanyl-laced pills don’t know they contain fentanyl, according to Wright.

Six out of 10 fake pills laced with fentanyl — a drug 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more than morphine — contain a lethal dose, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. 

Randy believes the lack of social interaction during COVID led to the increase of opioid-related deaths as teens developed more anxiety and depression and were scared of asking for help. 

“I think we’re still seeing the impacts of COVID after all these years,” Moeller said.

With teens still developing anxiety and turning to social media, where they can buy pills to cope, Woollen says opioid-use can be a mental health issue. So when the SROs suspect someone is using drugs, they first talk with school counselors and mental health professionals to get them support, according to Woollen. 

“So typically, when we’re talking to somebody, it’s from a place of love, meaning ‘We’re concerned about you,’” Woollen said. “‘We care about you. We want your body to be healthy.’ And then it’s [putting] it on them, like, ‘Where are you at? What are you willing to do?’”

If the issue can’t be solved, they bring it to administration. Police need to have a warrant or probable cause to search teens, but all administration needs is a “hunch,” according to Woollen.

Woollen acknowledges that it’s hard for the community to report opioid use, either for themselves or someone they know, for fear of getting in trouble. 

“Our learning community is very tight-lipped with a lot of stuff,” Woollen said. “We’ll have kids come in here talking about parties and stuff like that, but there’s a pretty in-depth network of communication that not everybody wants to talk to the police.”

From what Woollen has seen, teens at East usually obtain the opioid pills from their parents’ prescriptions, rather than buying them off the streets.

“Teens, a lot of times, tend to think if it’s a prescription, it’s not going to be as dangerous as street drugs,” Moeller said. “Street drugs, of course, are 100% dangerous because you have no idea what’s in them, but you should never take medication that’s prescribed for somebody else.”

To prevent misuse of prescription medication, pharmacies in Kansas implemented a drug monitoring program called K-TRACS in 2008, which tracks users’ prescription purchases to flag anyone who exceeds a daily 50 MME (mg of morphine equivalency) threshold of prescriptions. 

Pharmacists use K-TRACS to make decisions to avoid providing prescriptions for people who have shown signs of overuse.

“[K-TRACS]’s been huge, because we can, in real time, really see those patterns of use, and that empowers us then to notify law enforcement if there’s any suspicion,” Crystal Burkhardt, pharmacist and medical science liaison at University of Kansas Medical Center, said.

Teens should still take opioid prescriptions if necessary, but Randy encourages teens to take only pills from the pharmacy and not buy them online. Otherwise, students, thinking they’re buying regular prescription medication, can never be sure if they’re laced with fentanyl.

“I think more people are aware of [fentanyl] now, because it’s on social media now, awareness, and it’s in the news,” Randy said. “[…] That’s the only thing I wish I would have known about it, and maybe I could have helped save [Cooper’s] life.”