OWASSO, Okla. — The DEA reports 107,000 people died from illicit drugs last year, two-thirds of that number from fentanyl-related deaths alone.
Despite Wednesday's news conference from officials in federal and state law enforcement, the DEA Regional Family Summit on Fentanyl held on Tulsa Tech's Owasso campus was not solely about the prosecution of drug traffickers and dealers.
According to officials who spoke to 2 News, it was an appeal to families, educators, and peers as the overdose crisis rages on.
"To give a baseball analogy, we are in we're in the top of the second inning when it comes to fentanyl and how it's affecting our country. Drug use has a stigma," Special Agent Eduardo Chavez said.
"Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroine and 100 times more powerful than morphine," Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services' Bonnie Campo added.
"One pill can kill. But we're also saying if you need to connect to treatment, there are opportunities to do that."
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Officials said Oklahoma ranks among the deadliest and most trafficked states when it comes to fentanyl. But that it also has potential.
"We've invited school administrators, law enforcement, school resource officers. And then as you can see once you go into the room, a lot of community coalition and mental health service providers able to just bridge that gap," Special Agent Chavez said.
The summit also embraces those we've lost, according to Shelby Salazar, the surviving sister of former Jones and Central Oklahoma football star Ty Hughes. Salazar started the fentanyl awareness organization Talking About Ty in his honor.
"There's so many aspects to who Ty was and his death that I think is so helpful to other people, from him being over-prescribed opiates at one point in his life to also just battling chronic pain," Salazar told 2 News.
Salazar hopes lessons from summits like Wednesday's spread faster than the drug itself.
"We can try and decrease (deaths) but it's not going to stop," she said. "So the more Oklahomans can become (knowledgeable) in these resources we can at least hopefully start combatting some of the deaths."
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