A father is on a mission of warning after his son died from a fake pill laced with fentanyl
GLEN ELLYN, Ill. (CBS) -- If someone offered you a pill, and you weren't exactly sure what it was, would you take it?
How about if you knew the person and they told you it was a prescription drug? Would you take it then?
The answer in either case should be no. But it happens all the time – especially with teens and younger people who think they're taking one drug – not realizing the pill is a fake.
And it's something a west suburban family knows about all too well.
Dean Jeske is on mission. That mission is to drive home the dangers of prescription pills laced with the powerful pain drug fentanyl.
Young people are buying such pills on the Internet every day – and the pills are deliberately made to look like real prescription drugs. They are not.
On an afternoon in early March, Jeske, of Glen Ellyn, spoke to kids from three suburban high schools at a retreat at YMCA Camp MacLean on Rockland Lake near Burlington, Wisconsin.
"This is probably not going to be the most fun, easy session you have today. This one's going to be a bit heavy," Jeske told the youths. "There is an epidemic happening in our country that's taking the lives of young people – people who are just like you, people your age; that look like you and have all the hopes and dreams in front of them that you all have."
In a wood-paneled cabin with a fireplace, the teens sat, listened, and raised their hands to ask question as Jeske told a harrowing story.
"I'm not a medical doctor. I'm not a mental health professional. I'm not a member of law enforcement," Jeske said.
Fentanyl lacing is, of course, a major issue of concern for people in all those professions. But Jeske is addressing the teens for a different reason – for him, the issue is personal. Very personal.
"My only qualification for being here talking to you today is that I'm a dad who lost his youngest son to this epidemic," Jeske told the teens. "My youngest son, Peter, was a 22-year-old senior in college at Indiana University. He passed away in April of 2021. He had taken a single pill, thinking it was something else – likely an oxy. It wasn't."
Peter Jeske was an accomplished athlete – a beloved son and friend.
"He had so many friends," said Indre Jeske, Dean's wife and Peter's mother. "He just had such a great way of looking at things. He just was an easy personality."
Peter Jeske was studying finance in college, and was on his way to a great future – with a solid job offer after graduation, and a move to a new city, already all set.
But Dean and Indre Jeske said it all changed in one minute, on one night.
"It was about 9 o'clock on Tuesday evening. Indre was out with some friends for dinner, and there was a knock on the door – which was a bit unusual," Dean Jeske said. "I answered the door, and there was an Illinois state trooper standing in the doorway - which took me aback.
"He said, 'Sir, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but your son has been found dead in his apartment down in Bloomington," Jeske continued.
"I can't even describe what goes through. It's shock. It's so visceral – like your heart is squeezed, your stomach is – I mean, it's just the most horrible feeling ever, of course, as you can imagine," said Indre Jeske, "and the call to our boys was just so painful."
An autopsy later revealed that Peter had taken a pill – possibly something to help him study for an exam the next day. What he didn't know was that it was laced with fentanyl.
"I'd never heard of fentanyl. I didn't know what it was. I didn't understand how he could have had fentanyl in his system. Peter didn't have a history of substance abuse. He didn't have addiction issues," Dean Jeske told the young people at the retreat. "He made a mistake. He bought or somehow got his hands on a pill from somebody. We don't actually know how he got it. So he made a mistake, but it's not a mistake that should have cost him his life."
Dean Jeske wants to make sure other young lives aren't lost to what he calls "death by deception."
"If you don't remember anything else, this is what you need to remember – the entire drug market has been tainted by fentanyl," Jeske said. "It's everywhere."
Jeske says he will talk to anyone who will listen about how and why the epidemic is soaring.
"The street market has been flooded with fake pills – so think Oxycontin, Vicodin, Percocet, Xanax, even Adderall," Jeske said. "There are no pills you can get on the internet that are legit. They're all fake. They're all made with fentanyl. And they can all kill you."
When used properly, fentanyl is a potent pain management tool – pharmaceutical-grade, prescribed by a doctor, and highly regulated.
Last year, the Drug Enforcement Agency seized just under 58 million fake pills that were laced with fentanyl. A total of 60 percent of them had potentially lethal doses of the drug.
"These fake pills that come through - they're just made in somebody's basement, or the cartels are using them somewhere – you know, some shop that they have set up - and they might have been mixing meth or doing something, and then they just like pour this other substance on the table, and there's just no quality control," said Indre Jeske, "and they don't care."
Dean Jeske told the teens on the retreat: "If the drug dealers know that fentanyl is killing people. why would they put it in their drugs? The true answer is they don't give a ****. They are making so much money. That's just the cost of doing business."
"There's an element of wanting to addict people, so that's all they care about," added Indre Jeske. "If they lose a few here or there, they'll just make up with it with other people that they get hooked."
It's a strong message to kids, and for some, it hits home – hard. After the lecture, Dean Jeske was comforting one young woman who was crying.
CBS 2's Donlon also talked with a young woman named Emily, who attends Vernon Hills High School, after the lecture at the Wisconsin camp. As Donlon noted, there is often peer pressure – a teen could be at a party, and somebody will have a drug of some kind.
"Would you be comfortable saying, 'Hey listen, that thing can kill you?'" Donlon asked Emily.
"If I've never done it before, I don't want to try it - because again, that scares me," Emily said. "Getting handed this random pill – that triggers my brain. It's like, 'Don't take that pill.'"
Emily said she did not have that understanding before Jeske's presentation.
"That gave me an eye-opening perspective," she said.
The decision to share Peter's story publicly was difficult for both of his parents.
"I was concerned that the people who don't truly know Peter would just view him, or his memory, as the one who died of fentanyl poisoning," Indre Jeske said. "Peter was not an addict. Peter was an amazing young man."
"There's a hole in our family, and the hole's never going to be filled," said Dean Jeske.
"So we're doing it because of Peter. We're doing it because Peter would want us to," said Indre Jeske, "and that's really the bottom line."
The Jeskes are focused on fake prescription pills. But it's clearly an issue as well with recreational drugs – which are also often now laced with deadly levels of fentanyl.
Dean Jeske's point in his presentations is that fentanyl is everywhere. And taking any amount of it is playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette – but with a bullet in nearly every chamber.
