GEORGETOWN, Ky. (LEX 18) — Addiction recovery coaches are worried about a trend going in the wrong direction.
This one specifically might target kids. They say they are seeing younger people overdosing in Scott County. One of the issues might be teenagers trying to self-medicate.
Recovery coach Corey Councill is talking about how more teenagers and young adults are overdosing. So far in 2021, 31 people ages 16-25 have overdosed in Scott County. Last year, only eight people in that age group overdosed.
"The kids buying them from another kid, you just don't know what it is," Councill said.
Councill says this is not a new discussion. He says for so long, the message was not to do harder drugs like meth or heroin. That's still the case, of course, but the conversation has shifted a bit.
"We talked about that so much and the effects, the before and afters [of heroin and methamphetamine], but now with the prescription drugs, it just changes the game," Councill said.
Councill added the concern is kids trying to self-medicate and buy pills from friends or on social media.
"It's hard even sometimes for the police officers to tell if it's fake or if it's real," Councill says. "People are getting these presses and making them look like a Xanax."
"Unless you got a prescription from a doctor with your name on it, you have no idea," he added.
That is because the ones bought from a friend or online can be laced with fentanyl, which experts say is about 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
"Generally, we'll see two or three overdoses, non-fatal overdoses a week, but a few weeks ago, we were having double-digit overdose runs," Councill says.
He fears even with about 10 weeks still left in the year this increase may not be over.
"With the holidays coming up, we expect to see a spike," he says.
His big message is for parents to have that talk with their children and to monitor their social media.
