Bonamici Invites Parent Who Lost Son to Accidental Fentanyl Poisoning to 2024 State of the Union
WASHINGTON, DC – Today Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) announced that Jon Epstein will join her at the State of the Union address on Thursday.
Jon, together with his wife Jennifer, advocate in Oregon and nationally for greater upstream measures to protect youth from the harms of substance use disorders and accidental overdoses. The Epsteins lost their teenage son Cal in 2020 after he purchased online and then took a counterfeit pill disguised as a legitimate pharmaceutical. The pill was made of fentanyl, which is extremely likely in prescription medicines obtained illicitly; something Cal and his parents did not know at the time. Since Cal’s death, the Epsteins have worked to bring attention to this serious issue. They helped pass a bill in Oregon requiring fentanyl education in schools, something eight other states have since passed or proposed.
Bonamici worked with the Epsteins to develop her bipartisan Fentanyl Awareness for Children and Teens in Schools (FACTS) Act, which will scale up and replicate the local education programs that have successfully curbed student deaths from synthetic opioid overdose. The bill will also develop a federal interagency task force to fight the synthetic opioid crisis through education and prevention and improve federal education and health data collection efforts to understand and highlight the effects of synthetic opioids on youth.
The FACTS Act was inspired by the Beaverton School District’s Fake and Fatal fentanyl awareness campaign and curriculum, which has prevented student deaths since its launch. Jon and Jennifer have been instrumental in creating the curriculum and advocating for its expansion.
“No family should experience the tragedy of losing a child to accidental fentanyl poisoning,” said Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici. “I have been inspired by Jon and Jennifer Epstein’s advocacy following the loss of their son Cal. Their work on my bipartisan FACTS Act and other legislative efforts to educate students about the dangers of fake pills has saved and will continue to save lives. I am grateful that Jon is attending the State of the Union with me to share this plan of hope. I’ll do everything I can to get the FACTS Act signed into law and protect students in Oregon and across the country.”
“Harms from substance use in our country are far and away our #1 public health issue, as we are losing over 100,000 fellow Americans annually with no end in sight,” said Jon Epstein. “Every one of these precious lives matter. At the same time, the changing drug landscape marked by illicit synthetics like fentanyl, and the practice of packaging it to look like other substances, has created a new very serious risk for our naïve populations, including our youngest and oldest.
“With fentanyl, one no longer may be on an extended ‘journey’ of substance use and dependency before serious harms or challenges of addiction befall them. Our Cal may have been experimenting or self-medicating anxiety; we’ll never know. But we know he was unaware of this risk and didn’t have all the information to make a better choice,” Jon Epstein continued.
“Most parents assume their kids are getting the drug education they need in their school’s health classes," Jennifer Epstein said. "Unfortunately, because of the rapidly changing illicit drug landscape, most schools are teaching outdated curriculums and students are not being given the proper education to keep them safe from synthetic opioids, the most deadly street drugs in our nation’s history. Sadly, young people are dying every day; schools need help in order to update their teaching material as quickly as possible. The FACTS Act gives schools the help they need, and I am certain it will save young lives by preventing countless young people from dying from overdose and by discouraging many teens from drug experimentation that, more than ever, could lead to addiction."
“We’re incredibly honored to be part of this work and to be invited as her guest for this important event,” the Epsteins added. “There are no magic wands in this crisis and there’s much more to be done in deeper and more holistic primary prevention, drug education, and youth mental health. But the FACTS Act is a smart approach that strengthens protective factors for our kids that we all should be able to agree upon. We’re so grateful to Rep. Bonamici for her leadership on this issue.”
According to the CDC, overdose deaths more than doubled between August 2019 and March 2020 for adolescents between 14 and 18 years old and since then have intensified. Drs. Joseph Friedman and Scott Hadland cited that data in a recent perspective in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Every week the equivalent of a high school classroom’s worth of students dies of drug overdoses in the United States” wrote Friedman and Hadland, noting that recent studies show that many of the adolescents who experienced an overdose didn’t have a known opioid use disorder.
“We need a dramatic shift in drug-prevention programming to reduce teen overdoses and save lives,” said Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass General for Children and an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “It’s critical that drug prevention programs make every effort to help teens avoid drugs and alcohol, and with danger fentanyl poses to teens, we also need them to know how to keep themselves safe when they or their peers do use.”
Only 2 in 5 young Americans consider themselves knowledgeable about fentanyl, according to the national non-profit Song for Charlie. The organization, which is dedicated to promoting youth health and raising awareness about fake pills, also found that only 36 percent of teens are aware that fentanyl is being used to create counterfeit pills. After reviewing targeted information about fentanyl in fake pills, 69 percent of teens said they were less likely to consider misusing Rx drugs.
Parents and caregivers play a critical role in primary prevention, and Song for Charlie recently introduced The New Drug Talk: Connect to Protect, a resource designed to help families navigate these difficult issues. Jennifer Epstein is leading Song for Charlie’s upcoming launch of the program in Oregon, set to correspond with National Fentanyl Awareness Day on May 7th.
“The Epsteins are a power couple in this space,” said Ed Ternan, Song for Charlie co-founder and Charlie’s dad. “No one has done more to advance the mission of protecting our youth through education and awareness than Jon and Jen. Surely, Cal is as proud of his parents as we all are.”
###