Roman Gabriel III of the Sold Out Youth Foundation, an organization that challenges students to abstain from drugs and alcohol and pursue their dreams and goals, recently told the "Today's Issues" program that his organization is really focused on the fentanyl crisis.
"Our newest program that we're providing the schools is our fentanyl education program, educating parents and their students about the dangers of fentanyl and how social networking targets our kids to sell them illicit pharmaceutical drugs -- vape, marijuana," he detailed. "We have over 300 people dying a day in our country."
Gabriel said fentanyl is the number-one killer of 13-45-year-olds.
"We had a three-year-old boy that died in Apache Junction right outside Phoenix from fentanyl overdose," he reported. "There was a pill disguised as an opioid or a pain killer that one of the parents had. [He] got his hands on it, swallowed it, and died on the spot."
Sold Out will be working with the Phoenix Police Dept and radio/TV networks during Super Bowl week, talking about the dangers of fentanyl and how parents can protect themselves and their kids.
"Basically what kids do is they go on Snapchat, Instagram, [and] Twitter," Gabriel explained. "These things like Percocet, painkillers, [and] opioids -- they purchase them illegally through the cartels that set up these things."
The organization provides educational tools for drug and alcohol abstinence for 6th-12th grade students.
