The national Fentanyl crisis has become a war, even in ideal cities like Santa Clarita. Somehow, Fentanyl found its way into an otherwise beautiful community.
You can buy a press kit on eBay, on Amazon, to make anything look like whatever pill you want,” said Cary Quashen, a national addiction counselor.
“So now the market’s getting flooded with, um, with these pills and they’re, and they’re copycat pills, they’re fake pills, they’re fentanyl pills.”
“They look alike, you can’t tell them apart, and so people are going to go, they’re buying these pills off the streets, but these pills were now not what they thought.”
Santa Clarita is winning the war, one battle at a time.
“Our entire department, as a whole, currently treats overdose deaths, whether they’re fentanyl, any other opioid, or any type of drug at all; we treat them currently as murders,” said Captain Bobby Dean from the L.A. County Sheriffs Dept, Narcotics Bureau.
“Our mission for the sheriff’s department and this bureau specifically, and the entire department, is to save lives.”
Ideal almost never means perfect. It can mean other things, community, partnerships, a helping hand in a neighbor’s time of need; these are the things that make Santa Clarita ideal.
“It’s a community-based thing, and we are saving lives, we are making a difference,” said Quashen.
“In the last few years, there’s been a lot less overdoses, they’re still here, we’re not gonna get rid of them, but this is the only way we’re gonna make a difference, is education, law enforcement, schools, and everyone working together.”
