HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Law enforcement is teaming with Clear Channel Communications on a billboard campaign spotlighting the fatal dangers of fentanyl.
Eight billboards across the Greater Houston area feature the phone number of a substance abuse hotline and the messaging that ‘one pill can kill.’ The campaign is targeting people who may use illegal drugs that could be laced with unknown lethal doses of the highly-addictive opioid.
Harris County law enforcement and prosecutors confirm fentanyl, a pain killer, is now the leading cause of drug overdoses in Harris County.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office calculates more than 460 residents died after overdosing on the drug last year.
“This is reality. One pill can kill,” said Jason Taylor a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
If law enforcement can’t convince addicts to seek help, maybe 22-year old Chelsea Chanslor can.
The Montgomery County woman said she first began using Fentanyl at the age of 13. When she was 15 years old she says she was addicted to fentanyl and heroin. She said she used the illegal drugs to cope with anxiety and other mental health issues.
Photos show the physical effect drugs have had on Chanslor. She's been arrested and charged with felonies. She's even been revived through Narcan, a treatment for overdoses, multiple times.
And in July 2021, after getting high, Chanslor crashed her car and shattered multiple bones. She nearly died.
“I think a lot of parents take it like a blow to their ego. I raised you better than this,” said Chanslor while addressing law enforcement and the media at the podium during a press event. “I’ve taught you better than this. That’s not the case. It is a disease. It is a mental disorder that we suffer from. All it takes is one hit, one experiment to activate that.”
And awareness to get parents, like Chanslor’s, the tools they need.
“I carry Narcan in my purse. I carry it everywhere I go,” said Chanslor’s mother Colleen Fitzpatrick.
Narcan, or Naloxone, was first approved by the FDA in the early 1970s as a treatment to prevent opioid overdoses.
“You don’t shake it. You don’t take the cap off. All you do is put it up somebody’s nose," said Dr. Joy Alonzo. "That’s how easy it is.”
It may be easy, but decades later and the life-saving treatment is still expensive.
Dr. Alonzo says a bottle of Narcan costs $125. She leads Texas A&M’s Opioid Task Force, which confirms a vast majority of first responders in Texas still don’t have Narcan as part of their arsenal.
While Texas lawmakers approved to boost the criminal penalties for those charged with manufacturing or distributing fentanyl, and while Texas Governor Greg Abbott has re-positioned DPS Troopers along the Texas/Mexico border to seize fentanyl as it's smuggled in from Mexico, the state still has not agreed to fund Narcan for first responders or mental health facilities.
“What we want, is for every person in the State of Texas to have a naloxone rescue kit and to know how to use it,” said Alonzo.
The pharmacist is also calling for Texas to begin tracking opioid overdoses and deaths, which it currently does not.
Major cities like Houston do. But right now, there’s no actual data to confirm just how many Texans are overdosing and dying from fentanyl.
Nearly eight months into her recovery, Chanslor is sharing her story publicly in hopes of saving at least one life.
“Better safe than sorry," she said.