Framingham police officer pushes for legalization of fentanyl test strips
FRAMINGHAM - For Deb Schmill, the memory of her daughter, Becca, is powerful and even overwhelming at times.
"In my mind she's a constant presence but that also means, in my mind, I'm always so aware that she is physically not here with us," Schmill said.
Becca Schmill was a warm soul who, at age 15, experienced the trauma of sexual assault and cyber bullying. Deb says her daughter turned to marijuana, then harder drugs to blunt her pain. In 2020, she purchased heroin.
"What they purchased was laced with fentanyl and it killed her," Schmill said.
Framingham police officer Matthew Gutwill is too familiar with this story. He is also the President of New England Narcotic Enforcement Officer Association and a trainer for Noble LLC. He says Mexican drug cartels are putting fentanyl in nearly every illicit drug found on the street.
"Those that are going to take an Adderall or those that are going to take a Xanax, even those that are a recreational cocaine user, fentanyl is probably going to be in there," Gutwill said.
Experts believe fentanyl drove the nearly 10% increase in opioid overdose deaths that Massachusetts saw between 2020 and 2021.
Gutwill has a plan to combat the crisis. He wants to distribute thousands of fentanyl testing kits so that drug users can know if there is fentanyl in their supply.
"It may change their mind that moment. They may say, you know what, I'm not going to use that drug. This drug could kill me," Gutwill said.
The test works when users take a cotton swab and rub it on their drugs. The cotton swab is then dipped in a liquid solution and removed. After that, a test strip sits in the solution for 10 seconds. Once removed, the test strip will show one or two red lines. One line means that the drug supply is positive for fentanyl.
Gutwill says he has ordered 100,000 of these tests, each costing roughly the price of a cup of coffee.
"Whose child, whose brother, whose father, whose mother is not worth the price of a cup of coffee," he said.
There is one problem. Under Massachusetts law, fentanyl test strips are still considered drug paraphernalia making them illegal for police departments and others to distribute. Gutwill is aiming to file legislation to make them legal.
"We give out Narcan. Narcan is used after the fact, after somebody actually overdoses but someone who overdoses cannot Narcan themselves," he said.
Schmill wants the strips made available too. She also wants to broaden the conversation on drug abuse, teens, and harm reduction.
"If she had a fentanyl strip, she could have tested the drugs that she took. That may have saved her life," Schmill said.
For more one how the opioid crisis is affecting teens, WBZ spoke with Dr. Sarah Bagley, the Director of the Center for Addiction Treatment for Adolescent/Young Adults Who Use Substances of CATALYST Program at Boston Medical Center. Here is her interview: