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Youth-Led Awareness Efforts Around Fentanyl Use

07/29/2024

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Just Think Twice web page recently highlighted two youth-led projects to prevent fentanyl use.

High school students from Lincolnshire, Illinois, created the “Face Fentanyl, Face Death” video PSA for a HOSA (Future Health Professionals) competition in 2024. The PSA uses music, powerful visual imagery—including photographs, social media messages, and news coverage—and short clips from a police officer and DEA special agent discussing the dangers of drugs laced with fentanyl. The video placed first in the Illinois round of HOSA’s PSA event and advanced the Lincolnshire HOSA team to the competition’s international round this summer.
Youth to Youth, a peer-oriented drug prevention program in Dover, New Hampshire, launched the “Dealer is not a Doctor” campaign days after police in Manchester shut down a fake pill operation. The youth-led campaign warns students and the community at large about the dangers of fake pills, which often contain lethal doses of fentanyl. Learn more about the campaign and read local news coverage of the campaign’s efforts at https://www.justthinktwice.gov/media/youth-youth-works-raise-awareness-fentanyl-laced-pills.