They Didn't Ask for Fentanyl
Drug lacing can make experimentation fatal.
A Tough pill to swallow
Written by Grace Wu and Sophie Gurdus
“Alright, sweetheart, I’m going to bed. See you in the morning. Love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
As she drifted off to sleep, Liz Walker did not know that would be her last conversation with her son, Colin Walker.
Because while gaming later that night, Colin would take a drug he bought on Snapchat. Unknown to him, it contained a fatal dose of fentanyl. He was likely killed instantly.
“Colin shouldn’t have been doing drugs but didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t overdose, he was poisoned,” Liz said.
Growing up, Colin was a happy kid — he loved playing sports, had lots of friends, excelled at school, and was always ready and willing to help anyone with anything. He was adventurous, adrenaline-chasing, and enjoyed life to the fullest.
“He was always smiling, always joking, always trying to make people laugh,” said Rob Walker, Colin’s father. “Anytime he could jump off a cliff into the water, skateboard down a steep hill, compete in a sport, he would. He just loved the adrenaline of pushing himself.”
And Colin was never alone for the ride. He met his childhood best friend Brad Ayers in early elementary school. The two were inseparable for years.
“He was very fun-loving and really knew how to keep things light in any situation,” Brad said. “It was like he was able to make anything more of a game and less serious, and it was relaxing being around him.”
Their friendship kicked off at a second-grade playdate at Brad’s house.
“My mom was embarrassing me, and I was sure that was the end of our friendship. I was like, ‘Wow, no one’s gonna want to hang out with me after that.’ But Colin was just like, ‘Oh, we’ll go to my house from now on,’” Brad said. “From second grade through eighth grade, I kind of lived at his house. It was like a second home.”
The twosome would spend hours playing sports, video games, talking, or sitting in comfortable silence. Playing sports was a major part of the pair’s friendship, and much of their time spent together would be playing basketball, football, and swimming. They would often play one-on-one basketball at Colin’s house. Colin, as competitive as he was athletic, would always win.
Robert Park
Colin in elementary school.
“He’d annihilate me, and I would be done, and he forced me to play game after game after game,” Brad said.“Everything we played, he was just better. Everything that he tried.”
And he would try anything, was always open to a new challenge. He loved flipping Balisong knives, practicing for hours on end. He became really good — it was his thing, his special talent. One he shared with others, most notably Sandro Bernadini, his best friend.
“It was our favorite hobby. He was a very influential and talented person [in the Balisong community]. His flow and style drew in many young flippers who looked up to him, including me,” Sandro said. “Colin introduced me to this a year and a half ago. He had just started telling me I was getting decent.”
No matter the person, the impression was the same. Even in school, Colin left an impact.
“It did not matter who he was seated next to; he was so nice and helpful to kids that struggled,” said Kimberly Callan, his sophomore year math teacher. “I often would purposely put somebody that was struggling next to Colin because I knew that he would help them and be really nice about it.”
His peers noticed the same positive energy Colin radiated.
“Every time I’d walk into class, he’d greet me with that smile he had that filled up his entire face,” said Izzy Wilson, who met Colin in freshman year history class. "There will never be enough thank-you’s to give for making our time together so full. I keep watching old videos of us reenacting scenes from shows, or doing skits, or him doing something stupid like eating raw eggs, and every time I hear that laugh, I feel like he’s here."
Colin was a breath of fresh air — his smile lit up any room he was in. He loved his parents, older brother Aidan, and younger sister Kiera with all his heart. He took a special interest in helping kids who had different challenges and volunteered in the special needs class.
“He was a great friend to hangout with,” said Bryan Ma, one of Colin’s friends from lunch bunch.
But all was not golden.
Life wasn’t smooth sailing from the beginning. Even as a kid, Colin dealt with lots of anxiety, especially whenever he was going through a big transition in his life. His stress level peaked when he entered middle school and high school, and he was hard on himself when he made a mistake. As he grew up, he lived in this limbo between anxiety and a go-lucky attitude.
Freshman year was a turning point. Much like the teenage cliche, the transition between middle and high school caught Colin off-guard. The athletic and academic competitiveness made him withdraw from his interests. He quit sports and dropped advanced classes. That’s when he began smoking cannabis.
Colin’s parents were unaware of his drug use until October of his sophomore year.
When they found out, they didn’t know what to do. They understood that realistically, they couldn’t keep him away from weed but also didn’t want to see it harm him.
So they offered a compromise: he could use weed recreationally as long as he was always honest and respectful with his parents, made good decisions, and kept his grades up. If he didn’t, Colin knew that zero tolerance and drug testing would be the result.
“Some people can smoke pot occasionally, and it doesn’t affect them negatively,” Liz said. “But for Colin, it changed his personality, and he continued making bad decisions.”
Hoping for a fresh start, Colin’s parents had him apply to Serra High School, where his older brother was thriving. Colin was accepted to Serra and thought seriously about transferring, but in the end, he wanted to remain at Carlmont. He promised to change his attitude and stay drug-free.
And for a few months, it went well. Colin met new people and found his bearings. But then the pandemic hit. Cut off from social interaction, Colin fell deeper into his anxiety and depression. The lockdown was devastating for him.
“It was just isolating,” Liz said. “Colin didn’t die from COVID, but COVID helped kill him.”
Colin’s parents drug-tested him throughout quarantine, and he passed every time. In April 2021, his parents stopped testing him. Colin was almost 18, had stopped smoking for over a year, and although they didn’t want him using any drugs, they told him that he would not get in trouble for smoking weed occasionally as long as he promised never to do hard drugs.
As life returned to normal, so did he. He got a job, spent time with friends, and traveled to Mexico for a vacation with his mom and sister. Throughout the summer, he was happy. But when Carlmont transitioned back to in-person learning in August, things took a turn for the worse.
“His depression and anxiety came back in full force,” Liz said.
And, without his parents’ knowledge, he started to experiment with harder drugs bought on Snapchat. Cocaine specifically.
Street drugs are often laced with fentanyl, a lethal opioid 50 times stronger than heroin. The tiniest bit, just half a fingertip’s worth in Colin’s case, can kill.
The last week of his life, Colin was noticeably struggling. His mom let him skip school on Monday, adamant that nothing was more important than his mental health. Come Tuesday, he was back at school.
But what is important to note is that up to his last day, depression hadn’t overwhelmed Colin. He was having a bad week, but his life still had light. He had his college applications filled out, hoping to attend Auburn or Clemson University. In a letter to his future self written during the first week of school, he expressed hope that he would be happy and looked forward to college.
His dreams were left unfulfilled, though.
Saturday was his last day.
“That morning, I took Colin to see his doctor. He told the doctor that he was very depressed but was not doing drugs and knew he was going to start feeling better soon,” Liz said.
And he had every intention of doing so. Colin had been working towards better mental health and a new beginning.
“After seeing the doctor, I took him to his favorite restaurant, Panda Express, which is my least favorite restaurant, but he loved it, and then we came home,” Liz said. “He loved UFC and watched it all day.”
He was still sitting on the couch watching TV when around 11 p.m., Liz headed to bed and said goodnight to him one last time.
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Liz Walker
Colin and his sister, Kiera.
Colin and Izzy at Izzy's quinceañera.
Colin and Sandro flipping knives.
Liz Walker
Izzy Wilson
“I said ‘Alright, sweetheart, love you,’ and he said, ‘I love you too, Mom.’”
Colin stayed up playing video games. Around 1 a.m., he stepped away from the game and took what he thought to be straight cocaine.
But it wasn’t. The drug was laced with a lethal amount of fentanyl. Colin likely died immediately after taking it.
The next morning, his parents waited until noon to wake him, allowing him to rest until a 12:30 p.m. appointment. When Rob entered the bedroom, it was clear Colin was gone.
In the days, weeks, months afterward, Colin was grieved. By everyone and anyone who had known him.
“The outpouring of love for Colin and support for our family was incredible,” Liz said. “If he had seen how many people really loved him….”
And that was the truth. Comments and messages of sympathy flooded Forever Missed, Colin’s memorial website. People he might not have even realized loved him were left aching. And those who were closest to him before he left faced an entirely different endeavor.
“I kind of just wanted to be away from everything that reminded me of him for a while. I spent a lot of time out of the house. I still do,” Brad said. “And his neighborhood and places that we used to go to because you just don’t really want to be places where you have memories like that. Just wanting to be in places that don’t hold any sentimental value.”
Colin’s death was a tragedy. For him and everyone who knew him. For his family, for his friends, for the community. His loss left a hole in their hearts.
“Right now, the hole feels jagged and is excruciatingly painful,” Liz said. “As time goes by, the edges will round out, and the pain will lessen, but the hole will always be there.”
Their loss prompted Liz and Rob to reach out. They found Song for Charlie, an organization specifically geared towards spreading awareness about fentanyl lacing. They’ve met other families who have experienced the same thing. They’ve channeled their grief into good, driven by goals of preventing this from happening to any other family.
Colin and Brad.
Liz Walker
Rob and Liz are even hoping to host a school assembly on fentanyl awareness.
“That would have been Colin’s worst nightmare,” Liz said. “If the idea of death doesn’t scare you enough, to not do drugs, then how about the idea of your parents standing up in front of 600 of your peers?”
The loss will always leave a scar. Colin will be forever missed and, most importantly, remembered fondly.
“I will forever and always be grateful for the love and laughs I shared with him,” Izzy said. “I will miss him and his beautiful smile every day.”
Fentanyl,
a Hidden Danger
Anoushka Mekerira
The content in this audio package is very heavy and for mature audiences, discussion about death and drug use are involved.
Adolescent death due to fentanyl poisoning has surged over the past decade. It's becoming increasingly common for fentanyl to be added into other drugs, cutting costs and making them more addictive and more dangerous. Users often don't know their drugs contain fentanyl, as it is tasteless and odorless. While one pill might not be deadly, another one could be.
This audio package aims to spread awareness about drugs laced with fentanyl. Guest Ed Ternan, co-founder of Song for Charlie, shares his story on losing his son to fentanyl overdose and how his family-run nonprofit is spreading awareness.
America's next epidemic: the fentanyl crisis in San Mateo County
Written by Hudson Fox with graphics by Oliver Fichte
The smallest pinch of salt.
Thirty-two grains.
Less than two milligrams.
According to the New York State Department of Health, that’s how much fentanyl it takes to kill an adult in a matter of hours.
From New York City to the rural towns of Kansas to the streets of San Francisco, communities nationwide are fighting a global health crisis of major proportions. The opioid epidemic, coupled with the increase in fentanyl-related deaths, has taken a reported 100,306 lives in the 12-month period ending in April 2021.
What’s surprising about these trends is the astounding year-on-year growth. For the 12-month period of April 2020 to April 2021, drug overdose deaths nationwide increased by 28.5% compared to the previous year.
And locally, the trend is no different. According to Micheal Stauffer, a member of the Belmont Police Department and a member of the San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force, this is largely due to an increase in lacing controlled substances with fentanyl.
“What makes it dangerous is that people are [putting] fentanyl into other drugs. If you don’t have the right amount, it can be fatal to someone,” Stauffer said.
Due to the potency of fentanyl, “getting hooked” can be a real problem. Being 50 times more potent than heroin and up to 100 times more potent than morphine, the addictive nature drives usage.
The Local Crisis
Last year, according to Stauffer, San Mateo County saw over 75 overdoses relating to fentanyl.
Stauffer also maintained that, within the past eight years, fentanyl became more mainstream and the ways to get it have become increasingly diverse.
Historically, prescription fentanyl in pill form used by hospitals for surgical procedures and end-of-life care has been the main access point for people seeking pain relief. But in such a closely-monitored environment, drug users have turned to fentanyl patches – skin patches that slowly release fentanyl to help with pain relief – to access the substance. Stauffer also noted that drug users have become resourceful, using unorthodox methods to extract fentanyl.
“Even without [physical fentanyl patches], people are still abusing it by either taking the gel out of patches and smoking it or taking a syringe and taking liquid fentanyl out [to mix with other drugs],” Stauffer said.
But by and large, these patches can be hard to get. One needs a prescription from a doctor and the usage of the substance is closely monitored.
With an almost 56% decrease in opioid prescriptions in San Mateo County over the last 10 years, one might come to believe that the situation has improved; fewer prescriptions would equate to less substance on the streets.
However, that simply is not the case. In San Mateo County alone, fentanyl deaths have increased by about 438% between 2018 and 2020. In two years, the death total jumped from an age-adjusted rate of 1.69 per 100,000 residents to almost 7.41 deaths per 100,000 residents.
One of the causes is the “black market” aimed at the distribution of fentanyl.
When one thinks of “street drugs,” more illicit opiates come to mind (e.g. heroin). With fentanyl, the synthetic nature of the drug makes it easy to reproduce in a lab. According to Stauffer, the majority of illicitly sourced fentanyl is imported from China and Mexico.
These imports can be bought by anyone with the funds, and then redistributed via a drug trafficking network. As a result, access to fentanyl has increased, resulting in greater numbers of overdoses on the streets and at home, according to the Narcotics Task Force.
“The fentanyl crisis is affecting everyone. I’ve seen a lot of it on the younger side,” Stauffer said.
Mary Fullerton, the program supervisor of San Mateo County’s Integrated Medical Assisted Treatment team (IMAT), noted that, for her team, the average age for a person given two or more doses of Narcan, a prescription drug that is used to treat an opioid overdose, has dropped from 39 to 37 years old.
The shift toward younger fentanyl users may be prompted by the rise of social media platforms as an easy place for buying substances.
“One thing that I've been kind of surprised by in the last year is the amount of drugs people are able to buy through Snapchat, through Instagram, through different social media portals,” Fullerton said. “And I think youth are more vulnerable to that because they're on social media more.”
Certain communities, such as the Black community, have been disproportionately affected by the fentanyl epidemic. In an analysis of data from 2020 provided through the CA Overdose Dashboard by the California Department of Public Health, African Americans living in San Mateo County made up 8% of the total deaths due to fentanyl but only 2.8% of the overall population.
Addiction and the Pandemic
But across all racial, age-related, and gender boundaries, and regardless of how they get the substance, addiction to fentanyl is the main cause of overdoses.
“It’s the addiction that’s going to drive people to do it … If they want to get high, they’re going to get high,” Stauffer said.
And that addiction, in part, has been prompted by a worldwide catastrophe – the COVID-19 pandemic. Fullerton underscored the impact that isolation, prompted by the pandemic, has had on individuals' psyches by echoing the words of Johann Hari, a British-Swiss journalist.
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection,” Fullerton said. “People crave relationships, support, love, and when we are not getting that because we are quarantining ourselves in our homes for years on end, that isolation drives individuals to make poor choices or choices that immediately alleviate the pain.”
And to Fullerton, that isolation is directly linked to increased rates of usage and addiction.
“The pandemic, essentially, brings stress, uncertainty, and isolation. And to me, those are architects of addiction,” Fullerton said.
Fullerton doesn’t see this crisis resolving itself. To her, increasing rates of depression and substance use aren’t going to slow down.
“[In terms of] the long-term toll [of the pandemic] on our society, our mental health, and our wellness, I don't know that we've begun to scratch the surface,” Fullerton said.
Speaking to why people get addicted, Fullerton emphasized that these substances can have a material impact on the brain.
“People use substances because they work. We drink coffee because caffeine makes us feel more alert and tuned in,” Fullerton said. “When we're really suffering and really struggling, substances are one way to alleviate that pain. And for some people, their brains are wired differently, so they become fiercely addicted.”
Treatment and the Search for a Solution
To combat the potentially life-threatening aspects of this addiction, local health agencies, police officers, and other county staff have begun carrying naloxone. This nasal spray acts as a countermeasure to fentanyl by blocking the effects of opioids and aiding breathing.
Quick action can be required to prevent death. In the case of fentanyl, users can begin suffering from the effects of an overdose within seconds.
In more serious cases, it can take two to three doses to restore a person’s normal breathing, due in part to variances in a person’s age, weight, and general medical condition.
Naloxone can be a lifesaver. It can also be prescribed by a doctor to someone who is at risk of opioid overdose.
However, the vast majority of people who are at risk do not have access to naloxone. A study by the University of Michigan published in 2019 found that less than 2% of people at risk of opioid overdose had filled a prescription for the life-saving drug naloxone in the past six months.
Stauffer acknowledged that while the fentanyl epidemic cannot be completely eradicated, certain measures are being taken to slow its meteoric rise. One main focus for the Narcotics Task Force is bringing those who enable the illicit industry to justice.
“What we are focusing on is finding dealers in order to hold them accountable for what they’re doing,” Stauffer said. “Chances are that if they’re selling this bad product to one person, then they’re probably also selling them to other people.”
Others see promise in new drugs to offset the negative impacts of fentanyl. Fullerton added that in the last seven years, new medications aimed at treating opioid use have been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Fullerton sees this being helpful, but a few barriers stand in the way, including misinformation about the efficacy of these fentanyl countermeasure drugs.
“A lot of people worry about painful withdrawal symptoms and getting into the cycle where it's hard to stop,” Fullerton said. “One of the other myths that would be helpful to address is that if an individual is using opioids, there are safe, effective medications that can help them come off opioids including fentanyl.”
Another major obstacle to addressing fentanyl addiction and overdoses is the stigma surrounding substance users.
“People with addiction are marginalized,” Fullerton said. “People think ‘Why can't they just clean themselves up, stop using [substances], and get a job?’ And people don't understand that when you're addicted to a substance, the neural pathways of your brain have literally changed. It takes healing, time, and often medical attention and counseling support to help you stabilize and get back.”
Educational programs can play a major role in helping break down misunderstandings and stigmas. Stauffer highlighted the Belmont Police Department’s drug program that teaches kids and parents about the dangers of drugs.
“Education is the big thing [to help combat this crisis],” Stauffer said.
Fullerton, focused on society’s approach to substance use, emphasized the need for basic human decency and understanding in helping everyone get through this crisis.
Fullerton said, “I think that if we treated people with addiction with more humanity and compassion, you'd see more avenues open up [for them to receive treatment].”
Drug lacing: when experimenting turns deadly
Sophia Mattioli
By the year 2000, cocaine was the most frequently reported drug in the United States. Since then, synthetic drugs have taken over the market, from semi-synthetic oxycodone to fully synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl.
Synthetic drugs are created using artificial chemicals, opposed to natural ingredients. Because they are cheaper and easier to come by, distributors have begun incorporating drugs like fentanyl into their products without telling their customers. This allows the suppliers to cut their costs and make a bigger profit at the expense of their unsuspecting users.