Killer High: The Silent Crisis

Killer High: The Silent Crisis explores the growing impact of fentanyl and opioid addiction on young people in Fresno, California. Through the stories of grieving families, law enforcement, and medical professionals, the film shows how quickly addiction and overdose can devastate a household—often before parents even realize something is wrong.

The film places particular focus on parents who have lost their children to fentanyl poisoning, sharing their experiences in hopes of warning other families about the risks facing young people. Alongside their stories, frontline workers discuss what they are seeing in Fresno and the importance of education and awareness in responding to the fentanyl crisis.

Killer High: Youth

Youth overdose deaths rose sharply between 2018 and 2020, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl playing a major role. Many young people were unknowingly exposed through counterfeit pills and contaminated substances, including drugs circulating on social media. While recent data shows some stabilization in youth overdose trends, fentanyl remains a leading driver of fatal overdoses among adolescents and young adults, making prevention and early intervention critical.

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"The pandemic has created another health crisis – mental health professionals say they're seeing a significant rise in substance and alcohol abuse linked to COVID."¹

"Fentanyl is an opioid medication that is most frequently used in hospitals for controlling people's pain. It's a very strong opioid pain medication, whereas heroin is natural. That means it comes from the plant, the opium poppy. Fentanyl is purely made in a lab so there's nothing natural about it."

"It's one of the best highs out there ... These are drugs that are wonderful and that is what is scary about it. I've heard kids say, I never want to not feel like this again. That's a powerful statement. The other statement is, I've seen God."²

"Fentanyl in itself is predominately in a powdered format. It can certainly be ingested in a powder format. What we are seeing, majority wise, is in the form of counterfeit medication: M30 pills, often called Blues. It's made to be and look like a counterfeit Percocet pill."

"The Fentanyl Overdose Resolution Team (FORT) is a multi-agency taskforce that responds exclusively to fentanyl-related overdoses in Fresno County."

"Drug dealing all about money, and the amount of profit to be made off fentanyl is enormous. For a transnational drug cartel, these pills maybe cost them pennies on the dollar, 50 cents to make. Here, these pills are going anywhere between 25-30$ for one pill, so as you can see, the profit margins are huge."

"There are high school and younger age kids that seek out fentanyl. They know exactly what it is, they know exactly what high it gives them and that's what they crave, that's what they want, and that's what they're going after."

"It was an argument to get him to come out of his room and engage with the family and unplug from social media. It got to the point of expulsions and then we realized that drugs were becoming a bigger part of our lives, something that we never thought that we would have in our life."

"More kids die two doors down and in their own beds from mom and dad than they do on the streets. That's where we're finding them – with their headsets still on, Xbox going, eyes rolled back in their head and a white foamy substance coming out of their mouth. And at that point they are gone."

"Our [Parents & Addicts in Need] hope there is that these parents come out of there knowing that they're not alone. Most families think they're the only family that is going through this and they're not. There are more families going through this than anybody realizes."

"There is such a high volume of this substance that we cannot police or prosecute out way out of this crisis. We have to educate people."

"Narcan is an opioid reversal agent ... It is strictly a nasal spray. It will bring them out of their opioid overdose if you get to it in time ... It is definitely a life-saving tool that every family needs to have in their house, but a lot of people don't want it because they don't want the stigma of somebody else seeing it in their house and thinking that somebody's a drug addict."