Mom looks to share her son’s tragic story at healthy opioid summit
https://www.wkrn.com/special-reports/opioid-crisis/mom-looks-to-share-her-son-s-tragic-story-at-healthy-opioid-summit/1392183037
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – It’s been almost three years since Carrie Luther lost her son Tosh to an overdose.
“He made a mistake and took something that wasn’t what he thought it was,” Luther said. “Now, he’s gone forever.”
Luther says her son was having a hard time sleeping at night.
On October 27, 2015, he took one-fourth of what he thought was a Xanax pill from a friend.
“It wasn’t Xanax,” Luther said. “It was counterfeit, and it was fentanyl.”
Luther says the small amount of fentanyl, an opioid, killed him within 30 minutes.
Tosh was only 29.
“You don’t have to be an addict to be susceptible to this,” the mother said.
It’s a message she’s sharing Friday at the Healthy Tennessee Opioid Summit.
Nonprofits, law enforcement, counselors, and lawmakers will discuss ways to fight the opioid epidemic and growing fentanyl deaths.
“It’s important to me to let people know that this could happen to them or someone they love,” Luther said.
Last year, 1268 people died from opioid-related overdoses in Tennessee, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.
More than 600 of the overdoses were from prescription pills.
500 were from fentanyl.
“Fentanyl is so powerful that it only takes 2 to 3 milligrams to kill a grown adult,” said Shabbir Safdar, executive director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines.
“That amount is less than what would fit on Lincoln’s head on a penny.”
Safdar says most fentanyl overdoses come from counterfeit pills usually handed off between friends.
“There’s no prescription pill that’s safe unless you get it from a licensed pharmacy,” Safdar said.
It’s a warning Luther now spreads to young people and parents, hoping to save them from the pain she lives with every day.
“You do not want to be that person lying in a casket because you made a mistake,” she said.
The Healthy Tennessee Opioid Summit will take place Friday at the Hermitage Hotel downtown from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.
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