Adolescent Substance Abuse and Oregon's Drug Problem

By Zach Burghardt

Oregon City, OR. Chris Didier, father of Zach Didier, came to OCHS in late May to raise awareness of Fentanyl and share how his son died from a single fentanyl-laced pill bought in a mall via Snapchat.

Stopping several times when sharing his story, Chris Didier stated that the pill his son took had enough illicit fentanyl to kill several dozen people and “takes only a minute” to do so. 

Fentanyl is a schedule 2 substance similar to morphine, but about 100 times more potent. This type of fentanyl is different from what’s being sold on streets because illicit fentanyl is primarily manufactured in “clandestine” environments, Didier said.

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),  only two milligrams of fentanyl are enough to kill a person. In addition, many other opioids as well as even cannabis are significantly stronger than they used to be.

 “The cannabis being used now is not the cannabis of 30-40 years ago,”Michelle Horan, a school based addiction and drug counselor from Northwest Family Services, said in an interview.

Oregon ranked “worst in country” for Drug Problems

A report by the National Drug Helpline from last January says that Oregon is ranked worst in the country in terms of drug problems.

“It’s starting a lot earlier,” Horan said. “It’s around a lot more. Older teenagers [and] young adults use more, and it trickles down.”

Drugs being sold right now have changed in the past few decades. “It’s not your grandmother’s weed,” Horan said.“It’s stronger and you can become more physically dependent on it.”

In Oregon, there is also a huge unmet demand for mental health services. There are long waiting lists for mental health conditions and experts say that the statewide capacity of prevention, treatment, and recovery services is about half of what is needed.

“I have a caseload full of youth who could be benefiting from mental health services, but they can’t get in,” Horan said. “My scope is limited.”

Officer David Plummer, the police officer for Oregon City School District, said in an interview that drugs have always been present in schools, but there seemed to be an increase in fentanyl occurrence in our schools within the past 5 months. 

Plummer also said that a very common reason some teenagers use drugs is because of depression. Teenagers and even adolescents have increasingly started using drugs to try and solve mental health issues, but it isn’t healthy. 

“You're struggling with depression, not a knee injury," he said.

Mental and Substance Abuse Health Services

Measure 110 decriminalizes the possession of all drugs in small amounts for personal use and was implemented in early 2021 when COVID was still in full swing. 

The goal of measure 110 was so that drug addiction is seen as a health issue instead of a crime. It was also a way to help fix Oregon’s drug problem and increase the amount of  mental and drug addiction services available, but it hasn’t helped as much as officials thought.

Oregon City has lost around a dozen police officers within the last year. “They quit and they’re just done with it,” Plummer said. “It's hard for an officer to sit back and watch the decline of our city.”

There are plans to re-work measure 110 and create more structure to how it funds certain services, which are summarized by an article from Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB). 

“I’m not anti-marijuana usage,” Horan said. “I’m anti 14 year olds using marijuana whose brains are developing.”

Horan’s substance abuse program at Northwest Family Services is aimed towards helping teens find different ways to cope with stress, learn coping and refusal skills, identifying triggers, and “digging into some value work.”

They aren’t there to get people in trouble, police officers and drug counselors are there to help teenagers get past drug abuse. “Get past that,” Plummer said. “Move forward with your life. Kinda the whole point.”

Part of Officer Plummer’s job is to divert kids to treatment programs and get them the help they need, but that’s not so easy when treatment and counseling is so hard to find.

 He has spent a month looking for treatment for two kids addicted to fentanyl who have already overdosed a few times, and getting help can mean the difference between life and death. “They’re going to die if we don't find them help,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Naloxone

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIH), naloxone, more commonly referred to as narcan, is a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose by attaching to and blocking opioid receptors.

 In addition, naloxone has zero effect on someone who has not ingested opioids so it should be given to anybody who is showing signs of an opioid overdose such as slowed or stopped breathing. It is not a cure all and will wear off 30 to 90 minutes after administered.

House Bill 2395 is an opioid harm reduction policy package and is scheduled for its third reading on May 26. This package will allow schools to carry and administer narcan kits free from criminal and civil liability when acting in good faith.

How do you get treatment?

Education is one of the most important tools towards solving any issue. Substance abuse is not talked about a lot and drug awareness needs to be “bumped up” in this school district, Plummer said. 

The school district doesn’t do a lot in terms of awareness and usually only individual teachers are “stepping up their game.” 

Plummer suggested that the first step a teenager should take is to get a parent or trusted adult involved. In addition, he said that teenagers struggling can come see him to get diverted into a treatment program.

“Unfortunately, in Oregon there’s not a lot of treatment available, but there’s still some out there,” he said.

Photo Credit: Myriam Zilles, Jonathan Gonzalez