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To tackle the fentanyl epidemic, at-large New Progressive Party (NPP) Senator Keren Riquelme Cabrera, together with Brenda Pérez, an NPP Senate candidate for the Arecibo District, have introduced a new initiative aimed at high school students that will emphasize the harmful effects, including death, associated with the misuse of this controlled substance.
Riquelme highlighted the “historic surge in fentanyl usage, not just in Arecibo, where six individuals have lost their lives in just a few days due to this drug, but across Puerto Rico as a whole.”
“A crucial aspect of this battle is prevention and guidance, especially for our youth,” she stated. “Hence, we are proposing a program to reach schools, both public and private, where an interagency team of specialists will explain what this drug is, its impacts on individuals and the motivations for its misuse, along with the intervention strategies available for each situation.”
The senator indicated that she will engage with various central government bodies to collaboratively create a new guidance model, based on a previous Justice Department school impact initiative named ‘Value Your Life,’ which ran from 2009 to 2012.
“This new platform will incorporate personnel from the Drug Division of the Police Bureau, social workers from the Family Department, and subject matter experts from the Mental Health and Anti-Addiction Services Administration,” Riquelme explained. “Additionally, there will be behavioral specialists, and we will also seek resources to provide firsthand accounts on the realities of drug abuse.”
Pérez remarked that “this is a significant concern for us in Arecibo; therefore, this new impact platform we are proposing targets the essence of education.”
“We aim to prevent future generations from succumbing to this vice that leads to no good,” she emphasized. “That is why educating students about the risks of this drug is an essential tool in our effort to eliminate it from Puerto Rico.”
Experts have stated that the synthetic opioid fentanyl is up to five times more potent than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
