(ProPublica) – Until recently, opioids almost exclusively claimed the lives of adults. Since COVID-19 began, though, the rate of overdose deaths among teenagers has rocketed, more than doubling in three years. It’s not that more teens are using drugs, but that fentanyl has made the supply deadlier than ever. Many know or discover that the pills on the street are tainted but don’t want to stop — until they can’t. In a matter of weeks or a couple of months, they’ve become addicted. Today, over 300,000 kids under 18 are estimated to have an opioid-use disorder.

As fentanyl has rapidly entered the world of adolescents, the major institutions that touch teens’ lives have been unprepared to manage the fallout. Few doctors are offering the recommended medication, most schools are ill-equipped to help, and the justice system is treating children as criminals. Parents don’t know what to look for: the straws, the ash marks, the weight loss, the nausea of withdrawals. Teens are on their own. With nowhere to turn, each week, 22 high-school-aged kids — a classroom’s worth — are dying from overdose. (Read More)