A single fraudulent pill could contain a lethal dose of the drug fentanyl — the opioid that has led to over 70,000 fatal overdoses.
David and Kate Gibbons received the worst news imaginable when police arrived at their door to say their 19 year-old daughter had died of an overdose after taking just one pill that she believed to be the potent painkiller Percocet.
Tragically, the pill, purchased by a friend over social media, was in fact pure fentanyl. Just two milligrams of the deadly drug – equal to about 15 grains of table salt – is a lethal dose.
The New York family said their daughter was not one for drug use and rarely, if ever, got in trouble with her parents or the law.
Swallowing the pill was a mistake, Kate and David said, that cost her her life.
Paige Gibbons was trusting of the person who supplied her and her friends with the fake Percocet, which was actually all fentanyl
Her parents, shown left and third from left, said their daughter was not one for drug use or getting in trouble. Rather, it was a single mistake that ruined their lives
Paige, a student at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, had dreams of being a doctor. She had even taken the initiative to teach life-saving CPR to the girls at her high school, purchasing female dummies with her own money.
On Thanksgiving break in 2022, she visited a friend’s house, where the group decided to try a hit of what they thought was Percocet.
Percocet is a pain reliever made up of the opioid oxycodone and acetaminophen, in Tylenol, and is well-known for its addictive qualities.
Most patients who are prescribed the medicine take it for agonizing pain following an injury or surgery.
But an estimated 25 percent of those receiving chronic pain treatment from a prescription opioid become addicted to their medication.
The drug is also used recreationally, is it produces a euphoric high similar to heroin. Because it can be prescribed, it is common for teenager to assume the pills are safe.
Mr and Mrs Gibbons said they wanted to share their daughter’s story because it is one that thousands of parents have had to experience, given the extent to which fentanyl has contaminated the illicit drug supply in the US.
Mrs Gibbons told Fox News: ‘I can’t believe that we still hear people, you know, having this same exact situation.
‘I want to shout it from the mountaintops and make sure that everyone knows: Expect that it will happen to you; expect that you will die if you try this.’
Mr Gibbons added: ‘It doesn’t discriminate. Socioeconomically, race, religion. You take a pill, and you have a potential of dying that night.’
One of the friends nearly died, while the third did not take the pill and, ‘witnessed one of the worst things a teenager could witness in their lives,’ according to Mr Gibbons.
The surge in deaths is being driven by fentanyl, which gives a more intense high but is fatal in even small doses
Over 6,000 New Yorkers died of a fentanyl overdose in 2023. The drug naloxone is highly effective at reversing an overdose.
Dr Chinazo Cunningham, the coordinator of New York’s Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS), said: ‘We know with the internet and social media that kids can get what they think are real pills, but who knows where they’re made or where they’re coming from and what’s in them?
‘Fentanyl is finding its way into these pills and that can be deadly.’
Paramedics and good samaritans who encounter people overdosing and administer Naloxone — a life-saving drug that treats the effects of overdose — are increasingly finding that it doesn’t always work.
This is because drug officials increasingly play a game of whack-a-mole with new drugs appearing in the illegal drug supply.
The latest are animal tranquilizers, including xylazine and medetomidine.
A growing number of overdoses involving these medicines have occurred nationwide.
The two drugs also restrict blood vessels, depriving oxygen-rich blood from reaching skin tissues, resulting in the death of skin tissue and the formation of abscesses. Some of them require amputation to combat the necrosis or flesh rotting.
While there is no indication that the pill Ms Gibbons took contained either tranquilizer, many pills circulating do.
A CDC report found there were a record 107,941 deaths from overdoses in 2022, which is the most recent data available — the equivalent of 295 fatalities per day and up one percent on the year before.
Fentanyl was behind nearly 70 percent of the fatalities.
Broken down by age, researchers also recorded an up to six percent surge in overdose deaths among over-35s — while they declined in younger age groups.
The uptick was largest among those aged 55 to 64 years, where it rose from 45.3 to 48.1 overdose deaths per 100,000 people.
For comparison, among those aged 25 to 34, overdose deaths declined nearly five percent over the same period to 50.6.
