When it comes to legal opioid use in the Limestone County, Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson said, “We’ve had issues in the past, but the legal prescription drug issue is not what it once was. Other things have replaced it, but it’s still out there. It’s still very real.”

To combat youth access and use to opioids, Fowler Davis 4 Change in Birmingham has now introduced a campaign called, “Youth Opioid Prevention Initiative — Be Smart. Don’t Start.” This initiative is funded by federal and state grant funds. Jeff Davis of Fowler Davis 4 Change shared the mission of the initiative and explained the partnership with Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention.

“The goal with Youth Opioid Prevention Initiative is to educate, empower and equip Alabama’s youth, teens, parents/guardians, educators, and others in the community about the dangers of opioid and substance abuse and connect them with resources in the community that will strengthen the family and help youth and teens lead drug-free lives,” said Davis.

The initiative uses technology that young people are familiar with including videos and a web design that appeals to them for the initiative.

“We created the website to look like a social media site,” Davis said. “People don’t have to create a profile, but they wanted young people to feel comfortable navigating the site where they wanted to learn the information.”

They provide a toolkit on the website that is useful for schools, churches, after-school programs and other avenues to reach youth. A one-page youth poster has also been designed for the effort. The poster has QR codes that direct a young person to watch the videos and find help. Other detailed guides for youth, parents and educators are also in the toolkit, along with social media graphics, that can be shared from their website, BeSmartDontStart.com.

A statistic from the Alabama District Attorneys Association revealed that fentanyl overdose deaths in Alabama increased 135.9 percent from 2020 to 2021. That is more than 450 deaths in 2020 compared to over 1,000 in 2021. In 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 20 million fake prescription pills and found that 6 in 10 pills were laced with lethal amounts of fentanyl, also known as “fentapills.”

“This means that for every 10 pills, six pills had enough fentanyl to kill the subject instantly,” Davis said.

The White House Data Dashboard revealed in December 2022 that the state of Alabama is No. 7 in the U.S. for non-fatal opioid overdoses. With the type of initiative that Fowler Davis 4 Change has launched, Davis said, “There is hope.”

He shared a study that NaturalHigh.org conducted that showed that after reviewing targeted information on fentanyl in fake pills, young Americans were 65 percent less likely to consider misusing prescription pills.

When asked about the effect on rural areas versus urban communities, Davis said, “The fact of the matter is, it happens everywhere and it has no socio-economic boundary. It’s in the rural areas, it’s in urban areas, it’s in sprawling cities that are all over this state.”