Ft Worth Times

A Metroplex public school district held a public town hall on Thursday to address the ongoing fentanyl crisis, per a report from Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) NBC affiliate KXAS. 

The Frisco Independent School District (FISD) hosted the meeting in which officials and others talked about the drug’s devastating effects, which are being felt in the northern suburb of approximately 211,000.

KXAS reported that the town hall featured four panelists who were GraceToChange executive director Shannon White, a Frisco Police Department (FPD) sergeant, the city’s medical director and an employee from FISD’s Guidance and Counseling Department. 

White told the audience that in all of her 15 years working in substance abuse counseling, fentanyl is unlike anything she has ever seen. 

“This is one that’s just going to perpetuate and get worse because it is so readily accessible and inexpensive,” she said, the station reported. “So, I think we haven’t seen even the tip of the iceberg with this unfortunately.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that’s just like morphine, but is considered 50 to 100 times stronger. 

“It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally,” NIDA said on its website. 

The federal agency tasked with supporting scientific research on drug use and addiction added that fentanyl is among the most common drugs connected with overdose deaths.

KXAS reported that the Collin County Sheriff's Office said at the meeting the last five years have seen an over 800% increase in fentanyl overdoses. 

Austin NBC affiliate KXAN reported that Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star program has seized nearly 400 million lethal doses of fentanyl at the state’s border with Mexico since its inception. 

"Thanks to President Joe Biden and his reckless open border policies, the historic levels of fentanyl flooding across our border remains the single deadliest drug threat Texas and our nation have ever seen," Abbott, a Republican, said, per the Office of the Texas Governor.