MISSOULA — This is Red Ribbon Week, and the Montana Meth Project is focusing on fentanyl prevention. What’s different about this campaign is that it’s being led by a student.
"I think it's very important to spread this message in a peer-to-peer format, said Annie, a senior at Loyola High School in Missoula who is leading the fentanyl prevention program as her senior project.
Her lesson was inspired by the parents and families who have lost loved ones to the drug.
“We heard of a story of a boy named Kevin McConville, who was a 17-year-old [whose] mother found [him] dead in his bed,” Annie explained. “He thought he was taking a pill from an unknown source that would help him sleep, but unfortunately, he was deceased, and that just shows us the importance of understanding where these pills are coming from.”
The Montana Meth Project hopes that students will be more open to drug prevention advice if it comes from someone they can relate to rather than from authorities.
“We all went through a phase in our teenage and early 20s where we felt invincible and we thought this couldn't happen to us,” noted Montana Meth Project Executive Director Amy Rue.
A teacher-led version was considered for the lesson, but Annie believed she could have that positive influence that the Montana Meth Project sought.
“It’s a warning I want to spread to the people around me, said Annie who kept her sibling in mind while working on the project. “I have a brother that’s in college.”
While the threat of fentanyl does not discriminate against age, the Montana Meth Project educates people between 19 and 25 years old.
“You know, men and women go through a phase when they're coming into their own in teenage years — young 20s — where they're taking the most risks of their entire lifespan,” Rue told MTN. “We want to make sure they're armed with these risks far before they are offered a choice like this and make a deadly decision.”
The Montana Meth Project reports that in 2023, seven out of 10 pills seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency contained a lethal dose of fentanyl.
The goal of this project is to make sure those pills don't land in the next generation's hands.
"The numbers about fentanyl are undeniable, and it's a threat like we've never seen before,” Annie concluded.
Additional information about this fentanyl prevention program can be found at https://montanameth.org/fentanyl-lesson/.
