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Senator proposes youth orientation program that details the dangers of fentanyl

Writer's picture: The San Juan Daily StarThe San Juan Daily Star

By The Star Staff


In order to address the fentanyl use crisis, at-large New Progressive Party (NPP) Sen. Keren Riquelme Cabrera, along with Brenda Pérez, an NPP Senate candidate for the Arecibo District, have proposed a new program to impact high school students that will focus on detailing the detrimental consequences, which include death, of the abuse of the controlled substance.


Riquelme called attention to the “historic rise in the use of fentanyl, not only in Arecibo, where six people have already died in a matter of days as a result of the use of this drug, but throughout Puerto Rico.”


“An essential part of this fight is prevention, guidance, particularly for our youth,” she said. “That is why we are proposing a program to impact schools, both public and private, where an interagency group of experts explains what this drug is, its effects on people and the causes of abuse of it, as well as the mechanisms that exist to intervene in each case.”


The senator said she will be communicating with various central government agencies to jointly develop a new guidance model, which will be based on a former Justice Department school impact program ‘Value Your Life,’ which was implemented from 2009 to 2012.


“This new platform will include staff from the Drug Division of the Police Bureau, social workers from the Family Department, and experts on the subject from the Mental Health and Anti-Addiction Services Administration,” Riquelme said. “There will also be behavioral professionals, and we will also identify resources to provide testimony on what abusing this drug really means.”


Pérez added that “this is a very big concern that we have in Arecibo; that is why this new impact platform that we are suggesting goes to the core of the orientation.”


“We do not want future generations to fall into this vice that leads to nothing good,” she said. “That is why talking to students about the dangers of this drug is a tool in the fight to eradicate it from Puerto Rico.”


According to experts, the synthetic opioid fentanyl is up to five times more potent than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

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