Take action in the fight against Alabama’s opioid crisis.
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Alabama is in Crisis
Opioids are claiming lives in every corner of Alabama.
Since 1999, the opioid crisis has evolved into a public health and economic crisis that is eroding the quality of life for Alabama residents. People are dying and families are devastated. It impacts every sector of our economy, including healthcare, education, business, and local governments. The opioid crisis recognizes no neighborhood, no race, and no class. It is neither limited to backstreets in urban settings nor isolated in rural communities.
What Starts With Pain Relief Can End in Opioid Use Disorder
Opioids, prescription painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone, and synthetic drugs like fentanyl, have claimed countless lives. While prescription opioids can help when used correctly, misuse leads to dependence and opioid use disorder. For many, prescription opioid misuse becomes a gateway to heroin—another highly addictive and dangerous opioid.
Despite these harrowing realities, too many people still fail to take notice. Misconceptions persist, with some believing this condition is merely a lack of willpower or a series of bad choices. But opioid use disorder rewires the brain, creating an overwhelming need that is nearly impossible to fight alone.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offers a critical resource guide on the most commonly misused drugs, from pain pills prescribed by doctors to other substances unknowingly laced with fentanyl. Now is the time to take notice, understand the risks, and take action—because the opioid epidemic is not just a statistic, it’s a crisis costing lives every day.
Fentanyl Is Fueling the Epidemic
Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, are now the most common drugs involved in drug overdose deaths in the United States. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. In its prescription form it is prescribed for pain, but fentanyl is also made illegally. Illegal fentanyl is sold in the following forms: as a powder, dropped on blotter paper like small candies, in eye droppers or nasal sprays, or made into pills that look like real prescription opioids. Illegal fentanyl is being mixed with other drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and MDMA. This is especially dangerous because people are often unaware that fentanyl has been added.
Fentanyl works by binding to the body's opioid receptors, which are found in areas of the brain that control pain and emotions. Its effects include extreme happiness, drowsiness, nausea, confusion, constipation, sedation, tolerance, addiction, respiratory depression and arrest, unconsciousness, coma, and death. The high potency of fentanyl greatly increases risk of overdose, especially if a person who uses drugs is unaware that a powder or pill contains it. They can underestimate the dose of opioids they are taking, resulting in overdose.
Naloxone is a medicine that can be given to a person to reverse a fentanyl overdose. Multiple naloxone doses might be necessary because of fentanyl’s potency.
Find Naloxone and Fentanyl Test Strips Near You
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