By BEN BOTKIN/Oregon Capital Chronicle

A national nonprofit organization released a new program on Tuesday to help families navigate the hazards of fentanyl and prevent deaths of young people as Oregon continues to battle the lethal drug epidemic.

Song for Charlie, a nonprofit focused on raising awareness about fake fentanyl pills, launched The New Drug Talk Oregon, an educational web-based platform with free information about the risks of fentanyl and the dangers of self-medication and experimentation. The program also gives families guidance on how to discuss the drug, which is highly lethal and commonly found in counterfeit prescription drugs and sold illegally.

The campaign was one of several in Oregon to start on Tuesday and coincides with National Fentanyl Awareness Day. The Oregon Health Authority launched a five-week campaign to educate Oregonians about fentanyl risks, harm reduction strategies like fentanyl test strips and how to respond to an overdose. The state’s campaign will unfold on the health authority’s English and Spanish-language Facebook accounts.

Multnomah County also launched a fentanyl awareness campaign, called Expect Fentanyl, targeting Portland-area youth.

More than 300 young Oregonians 15 to 24 years old have died of drug overdoses in the last five years, many of them from fentanyl, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The rate of teen drug-related deaths has increased in the state nearly sixfold, and Oregon now has the fifth-worst per capita rate of drug deaths among teenagers, according to CDC data compiled by Song for Charlie.

Meanwhile, a survey of Oregon parents and youth commissioned by Song for Charlie found persistent gaps in how families are responding to the crisis. Nearly three-quarters of Oregon parents said they talked to their children about the dangers of prescription pills laced with fentanyl. But only about 40% of young people said they remember having this conversation.

And just three in five Oregon youth – teenagers and young adults – consider the misuse of prescription pills a serious issue. The survey, completed in the spring, is based on interviews of more than 1,300 teenagers, young adults and parents in Oregon, and has a margin of error of 4 to 5.65 percentage points.

‘Ongoing conversations’

The New Drug Talk Oregon program was backed by a $1 million grant from Trillium Community Health Plan, a Medicaid insurer for about 90,000 people on the Oregon Health Plan in the Portland area and Lane County. That funding means the Song for Charlie’s program is available to Oregonians at no cost.

A Washington County resident, Jennifer Epstein, director of strategic programs for Song for Charlie, is involved with the program. She became an advocate to increase awareness and education about fentanyl after her 18-year-old son Cal died in 2020 after he ingested a counterfeit pill with fentanyl.

“What we want to do is encourage parents to have ongoing conversations with young people,” Epstein said in an interview.

The program’s site has articles and videos that guide parents through talking to their children about fentanyl, staying safe on social media or the death of someone from an overdose.

Epstein said if the resource had been available before her son died, it could have saved his life.

“I certainly think that this could have changed what happened to our family if we had been able to have conversations about fentanyl and the risks it poses and the danger of self-medicating,” Epstein said.

More information

For more information about the educational program for families, visit thenewdrugtalk.org/oregon.
Visit the Oregon Health Authority site for a list of syringe and needle exchange services available in Oregon.