BEAUMONT, Texas — Southeast Texas leaders invited the community to learn about the increasing deadly threat of fentanyl, opioid abuse at a public meeting Wednesday evening.
District Attorney Keith Giblin, Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens and Beaumont Chief James Singletary hosted the town hall in the performing arts center at West Brook High School.
The Jefferson County division of the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area were also on hand to answer questions.
Wyndi and Mical Padgett were present at the town hall and spoke to the packed crowd.
Five years ago, their 21-year-old son Blain was sold a hydrocodone pill laced with fentanyl.
"We want to tell Blain's story. We want him to be remembered not just by us that knew him but by everybody," the heartbroken parents said. "It's changed the trajectory of our lives and our happiness."
The Padgetts don't want the public to be misinformed and think it can't happen to them.
Giblin and his executive assistant Brit Featherston have been leading the fight against fentanyl in Southeast Texas.
"We want to spread the word about the dangers of fentanyl that's laced into different other types of narcotics such as Adderall or Xanax," Giblin said.
Giblin and Featherston say the drug is taking over.
"We have seen numerous cases come in where poor individuals have been left at the hospital dead and that scares us to death," Featherston said.
The duo says they'll keep having these meetings until there are zero overdose deaths in Jefferson County.
"We need to educate the public one overdose death is too much. There's a new Texas statue that we will charge you with murder if we catch you with fentanyl and it kills someone," Giblin said.
While the Padgetts can never get their son back, they hope these changes can maybe save someone else's loved one.
"Maybe we can keep another family from having to go through the same thing we had to," Wyndi Padgett said.
Giblin says they've been speaking with school district in Port Arthur and Mid-County to possibly bring the "One Pill Can Kill" meeting to their communities as well.
House Bill 6 (Goldman/Huffman) creates a criminal offense of murder for supplying fentanyl that results in death, enhances the criminal penalty for the manufacturing or delivery of fentanyl, and requires deaths caused by fentanyl to be designated as fentanyl toxicity or fentanyl poisoning on a death certificate. Current law does not require such classification on a death certificate, with most fentanyl-related deaths currently classified as an overdose.
House Bill 3144 (Lujan/Campbell) establishes October as Fentanyl Poisoning Awareness Month to help increase awareness of the dangers of fentanyl.
House Bill 3908 (Wilson/Creighton), also known as Tucker’s Law, requires public schools each year to provide research-based instruction on fentanyl abuse prevention and drug poisoning awareness to students grades 6 through 12. The bill also requires the Governor to designate a Fentanyl Poisoning Awareness Week.
Senate Bill 867 (West/Rose) allows the distribution of opioid antagonists, including life-saving NARCAN, to Texas colleges and universities to prevent opioid poisonings.