By Audrey Sawyer and Eddy Zhang
TRUSSVILLE, AL – Fentanyl currently takes over 150 lives each day, notes Trussville, AL, City Councilmember Lisa Bright, who wrote in an Op-Ed on AL.com that her son Will died from an overdose.
Bright explained her son fought for years to reclaim his life, but that he did not have the resources to find a “sustainable path” out of addiction. As a result, Bright created the Will Bright Foundation to help individuals after attending rehab.
Bright’s Op-Ed in AL.com asks for states to provide access to better resources and “commit to saving lives” by ensuring that all states have access to every FDA-approved opioid reversal agent.
The piece argues that a few years ago there was major concern about opioids as a whole, but that fentanyl specifically as a crisis has now dominated the conversation, charging healthcare providers in rural cities, police officers, firefighters, and college campus personnel are not receiving the resources necessary to address concerns of prominent deaths and overdoses.
The guest opinion piece from AL details a fentanyl crisis across the South, citing that Georgia’s total number of opioid-related overdose fatalities rose 101 percent between 2019 and 2021.
During this same period, deaths attributed specifically to fentanyl surged by 124 percent. In Alabama, the AL.com Op-Ed explains that around 70 percent of overdose deaths were related to opioids in 2021.
Tennessee, which ranks second in overdose deaths, showed a 446 percent increase in deaths from fentanyl between 2017 and 2021. Other shared statistics show that more than 2,140 Virginians had died from opioid overdoses in 2022 (274 percent increase since 2012), and that Texas saw a 500 percent increase in fentanyl-specific deaths in the years 2019-2022.
The Op-Ed emphasizes that protecting the communities ought to be a priority, and that many people are not aware that each state has its own individual policy (a standing order) acting to ensure the availability of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved reversal agents for opioid overdoses.
The article notes that while some states have updated their standing orders to allow for new formulas (allowing access to the most effective medications), other states still prevent access by only allowing for one formula, despite innovation on new reversal agents.
The piece by Bright concludes on a sentimental note, highlighting the detrimental effects of drug addiction especially on those who are at their weakest, acknowledging the elusive nature of drugs in providing an “easy high” that allows individuals to escape from their “pain, sadness, frustration, or a sense of being unworthy.”
However it is for this precise reason, Bright’s Op-Ed argues, that communities must provide “love, support, and the right resources” to save the victims of drug addiction.
Despite the heart-wrenching overdoses of Will and many others, city councilmember Bright emphasizes the importance of solutions, such as increased accessibility to opioid reversal agents, which have been proven to save countless lives.
