Reuters – LAILA KEARNEY
“The desperate cry of a mother finding her 17-year-old son dead from a painkiller and another prescription drug instantly silences hundreds of Pennsylvania high school students who listen to her 911 call played at an early morning assembly. That recording, played as the roughly 500 students look at an urn holding the dead boy’s ashes and photos of dozens of other teens who died of overdoses, is the gut-punch that anchors a new educational program aimed at combating the rising abuse of prescription opioid abuse among U.S. young adults. “All these kids were around our age, said Michael Senn, an 18-year-old senior at the school Downingtown High School East, after the program. “It felt personal.” Senn and his classmates had just sat through a presentation by Narcotics Overdose Prevention and Education, or NOPE, one of a handful of prevention programs cropping up around the United States offering high school and middle school students education about prescription opiate painkillers.”(more)