Imagine walking around your neighborhood on Halloween while your child goes door to door yelling “Trick-or-Treat!” After you get home from a long night of this repeated scene, you check your child’s bag and see rainbow colored pills. Fentanyl has become more alluring to the younger generation by disguising it as a fun “happy” pill that looks like a sweet tart. But in reality, it’s a deadly drug that could kill your child with just a small dose.

Recently, this drug has been released onto the streets of America and has been handed out to children, especially during Halloween or at day care. 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital made an article around 2022 regarding its deadly and terrifying effects it can have on any person. This hospital stated that they are “brightly colored like chalk and candy, potentially making them more attractive to children and young people,” after releasing a picture of the drug.

The most terrifying part about this widespread panic, is that even adults with children don’t know about the panic of this “candy.”

“I didn’t know about this at all, I think I’d have to research the topic more to get a better understanding of it,” was a direct response from Stewart Watson, a teacher at Celina High School, when he learned of this new drug.

As well as Aaron Bowsher, another teacher at Celina High School, revealed that he had “no idea this was a thing being handed out to children. Although it’s not surprising, I know that you can easily access drugs nowadays,” after being asked if he knew about this crisis.

Although there are very few reports of this drug being handed out to kids, it is very popular within the younger generation and has been seized repeatedly before it even hit the market.

Weekly Columns published a statistical article on the dangerousness and numbers of these drugs being seized in over “26 states, including much of the Pacific Northwest,” they stated.

Twenty or so years ago, society didn’t have the knowledge of the types of drugs like fentanyl candy. Kids were allowed to roam around town without a parent, most of the time they were older than ten, and were able to ride their bikes alone without the feeling of being followed.

Erica Driscess thankfully shared that her “life growing up was a lot different than how it is now. We have to be more careful and we can’t let our kids come home when the street lights turn on, like how I did,” she is also a teacher at Celina High School and has children as well.

Our society is changing so drastically that it’s hard to keep up at times. There are constantly new drugs being made and put onto the street before it could be turned into a better use. Although America has laws against most drugs, what is stopping teenagers from acquiring a drug that looks like candy and makes them feel pleasure?

Police officers, parents, and even teachers can lecture anyone that uses drugs and how it’ll ruin that person’s life if they continue. But, they’ve already had that lecture over and over again to the point where they take the opinions of others with a grain of salt.

For example, a twelfth grader named Joey Goldsberry revealed that they “understand how easy it is to get any type of drug you want just by going up to someone random at school.”

Even a student, Goldsberry, at Celina High School understands that most of the druggies at certain schools are the way they are due to the environment they grew up in. These kids aren’t just getting it from other kids, they are getting it from their parents.

The whole world cannot change within a couple or so years where society has fallen and risen with a variety of different people. It’s hard to understand the full extent of how dangerous fentanyl and other drugs are. Most people know the basics, “it’s bad for you, don’t do it.” 

It’s also hard to see how people can change these dangerous things, drugs, into a better use. Although we have seen empires rise and fall as we scoff and say “how did they not see that coming?” It’s easier to judge from an outside perspective since we have so much more knowledge than past nations. 

America has no idea how it will fall, if it ever does, and how it’ll be able to survive later in the future due to the fact that we have no way of saving ourselves from something that we had no idea even existed. 

Even if America goes through all the protocols, sets the laws, changes society, and almost everyone in that nation complies with the government, there will always be a group of people that will set us back to our old ways. That is the flaw of humans, we cannot agree to live in peace without war.

Although fentanyl candy has become an increasingly popular drug, police and multiple other forces related to that area have been trying their hardest to track it down.