CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Fay Martin knows firsthand the dangers of illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF) after losing her 29-year-old son Ryan to the drug in May 2021.
Martin said Ryan began taking prescription opioids after an injury, but he ended up becoming addicted to narcotics and moved on to street drugs, which can often be laced with illicitly made fentanyl.
It's believed to be made in Mexico using Chinese chemicals, and, according to ABC News, is being blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.
"These drugs are coming in and they are designed to kill Americans and it’s working,” Martin said.
So her crusade to get make Narcan -- the nasal spray that reverses an opioid overdose -- more affordable and to put it into the general public's hands is personal.
"I feel like nowadays anybody who’s got kids, teenagers they should have it in their home," she said. "And if parents want to say 'No, not my kid, well, I said that, too, and my kid is dead. My kid is in an urn on my nightstand.”
Getting parents access to Narcan wasn't her only objective at Thursday's "One Pill Kills" summit in Austin, hosted by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Martin tells 3NEWS that she also would like to see stiffer penalties for drug-induced homicide laws.
She also wants fentanyl declared as a weapon of mass destruction, and for law enforcement to look at overdoses as poisonings.
She would also like to see them conduct more thorough investigations into drug-induced deaths.
Martin isn’t the only one in the Coastal Bend who feels Narcan is beneficial.
South Texas Substance Abuse Recovery Services (STSARS) has seen fentanyl's dangers firsthand. They have provided Narcan since 2020 to try and prevent drug overdoses.
"Since then we have provided and trained and provided 678 individuals with Narcan,” said the organization's asst. supervisor Charles “Taze” Vandever.
Vandever said the organization receives about 15 calls each month from people who have used the Narcan to save someone’s life, and that’s exactly what Martin wants to hear more of from across our state.