On Christmas Day, 18-month-old Ava Floyd ingested “a large quantity” of fentanyl while her parents were producing and packing the potent drug for sale at their home in Clinton Township, Mich. That afternoon, Ava died at a local hospital. An autopsy found that her tiny body contained “15 times as much fentanyl as officials have seen in recent overdose deaths.”
I read the heartbreaking story of Ava’s death just before I entered my daughter’s room to turn her ambient sound machine from lullabies to white noise. From the side of her crib, I looked down at my daughter’s sprawled-out sleeping form, all 23 pounds of her brimming with limitless potential. I reached my hand down to touch her chest, to feel it rise and fall, thinking of the thousands of hours I have devoted to keeping her safe and happy.
As I often do, I worried about her future.
Before I read about Ava, I mostly worried about what might happen when my daughter began to attend the local high school, just over an hour west of Clinton Twp., which has earned its nickname, “Heroin High,” from the drug problems that plague our town. At the playgroup where I bring my daughter twice a week, mothers who graduated from the high school sometimes share stories about how heroin sales take place at the school, despite the constant surveillance of security guards. When they sense my abject horror, they say things like, “It’s not a big deal, you just learn to stay away from it,” as though heroin is a series of unmarked physical pits in the hallways that an unwary student might accidentally fall inside.
After I read about Ava, it became clear that the opioid crisis will not wait until high school to affect my child. Just like Ava Floyd, my daughter was 18 months old at Christmas. Now, she is something Ava will never be: 19 months old.
Fentanyl can strike anyone, at any age, on account of the unique method by which it can be absorbed: through contact with the skin. A relative in the Drug Enforcement Administration warned me last year that, because of fentanyl’s increasing use and availability, I should wipe the handle of any grocery cart I use. He explained that people who have developed a tolerance to fentanyl may have handled the cart before me, and that the quantity required for the average adult to overdose and die is just 3 milligrams. Smaller still, he said, was the amount required to kill my daughter.
While many balk at the notion that merely touching fentanyl can lead to an overdose, any contact with the mucous membranes can introduce the drug to the bloodstream. Additionally, according to the American College of Medical Toxicology, the use of alcohol-based sanitizer is both “ineffective in removing fentanyl and may increase drug absorption.”
I always try to remember, along with extra diapers and wipes and snacks and the grocery list and fastening the car seat safety clip at my daughter’s chest and not her stomach, to watch the places, people, and things my inquisitive daughter’s hands touch. Whenever I wipe the handle of every cart we use, I will always wonder whether that maneuver is endangering, or protecting, my child.
Our border crisis is real. About 90 percent of heroin and 80 percent of fentanyl in the U.S. is sourced from Mexico. While rehabilitation and addiction recovery services are a key component of the strategy for dealing with America’s opioid crisis, we must also address the porousness of our border.
When we fail to keep deadly drugs out of our country, Americans lose. We lose family members and friends, and the capacity those people possessed to positively change the world. We allow American money to be funneled into the hands of vicious Mexican cartels that inflict horrific retribution on those who oppose them.
For the past two weeks, I have written about the congressmen, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who refuse to acknowledge the border crisis, or forget the drug epidemic facing the nation, including southeast Michigan. I have written letters to each of my Democratic congressional representatives detailing the crisis and my concerns, and I have heard nary a peep in response.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
