Justice student dies from fentanyl overdose
A Justice High School student has died of a fentanyl overdose in Seven Corners, the Fairfax County Police Department reports.
Police officers responded to an apartment in the 2900 block of John Marshall Drive at 6 p.m. on Dec. 3 for a juvenile who was unconscious and not breathing. She was transported to a local hospital and pronounced deceased.
Preliminarily, detectives determined the victim was video chatting with a friend when she became unconscious. The friend alerted a family member who found her unresponsive and called 911. Detectives found evidence of narcotic usage nearby.
Related story: Police educate Annandale residents on the fentanyl crisis
For the past several years, more than 90 percent of all drug overdoses in the Fairfax Health District have involved fentanyl. The Fairfax opioid overdose dashboard reports that overdoses among youths have been increasing.
As little as 2 mg of fentanyl, an amount that can fit on the tip of a pencil, can be fatal.
According to the Police Department, youths are taking counterfeit prescription pills, such as Xanax, Percocet, and Adderall, or powders marketed as heroin or cocaine that contain fentanyl. “These substances can vary greatly in appearance and packaging, and it is almost impossible to know whether an illicit drug has a deadly dose of fentanyl or not,” the FCPD states.
Fairfax County Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid sent a letter to Justice High School families on Dec. 4 advising them of the overdose and providing resources on substance abuse.
Reid said no additional information will be released about the incident, citing privacy concerns.
“It is important that we treat substance use disorders and overdoses with compassion, grace, and understanding,” Reid wrote. “As a community, we all play a role in reducing the stigma associated with substance use disorders, while also focusing on substance misuse.”
The Police Department offers the following tips to protect youths from overdose risks:
- Establish open and honest lines of communication with your children. Encourage them to share their experiences, concerns, and any encounters with drugs.
- Educate yourself and your children about the dangers of drugs, including fentanyl.
- Be aware of the signs of drug use, such as sudden changes in behavior, declining academic performance, changes in friend groups, or unexplained financial difficulties.
- Keep prescription medications locked away and out of reach of children and teenagers.
- Foster a healthy and supportive environment within your family and community. Encourage participation in extracurricular activities, hobbies, and sports.
- Sign up for a training session on how to recognize the signs and symptoms of an opioid overdose and how to administer naloxone nasal spray to reverse an opioid overdose.
10 responses to “Justice student dies from fentanyl overdose”
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Maybe we shouldn’t put needle exchanges in Seven Corners after all.
Yes cuz that’ll stop overdoses right? No it won’t. Instead you’ll have addicts sharing needles and diseases and one of those people who just happened to try somethin a few times may recieve that disease without knowing it and pass it to someone you know. To me the less people around me with HIV or Hep C the better for myself and everyone else. Not to mention it’s been proven to work time and time again.
Awesome. Where do you live? I’ll submit a request to the county to put a needle exchange in your neighborhood.
It’s very sweet of you to wish improved safety on a stranger’s neighborhood. Gobbless!
Not an exchange but a cage. Dealers and users have to be cut off from the source or supply. That is hard, but doable. It has to be both to dry up the market that poisons our children and communities. When cut off and clean for a significant time, then rehabilitation can be attempted for the users. Dealers can stay till locked up they die of old age as far as I’m concerned. I’ve lost several due them.
Because this has been so successful in the past? Name one instance where illicit substances have been successfully “cut off from the source.” If there’s one thing the “war on drugs” for the last 50+ years has proven, it’s that we will never eliminate them. There will always be a demand for them and there will always people willing to provide them, given the financial incentives to do so.
At least with needle exchanges users as well as the larger community will be safer.
Needles had nothing to do with this. Your kneejerk reflexes are working well for your age, though.
Do you think maybe, just maybe, needle exchanges attract drug users, and therefore drug dealers, to our area? Do drug dealers only sell one type of drug? NOPE. Take critical thinking at Nova next semester.
Let me add a bullet:
-Arrest the drug-dealing MS-13 gang members operating with impunity in our public schools.
Agree with Rick Sams – we allow gangs to operate within the schools. Justice HS in particular is an MS-13 hot spot. Breaking up the gang communities in Culmore/7Corners area – whether it is a task force involving DEA or just locals.
I would also add that allowing students to wander halls and chat on phones, encourages drug use too. It becomes “social” to videochat with your friend while doing drugs in the bathroom. Almost all instances of ODs are several students in a bathroom hanging out or an individual chatting on the phone/or texting on the phone.