Bay Area billboard campaign shares stories from families wrecked by fentanyl overdoses
A billboard campaign along Bay Area freeways is featuring people, as young as one-year-old, who have lost their lives to fentanyl.
Advocates said campaigns such as this are part of the reason that overdose deaths dropped by 17% nationwide from July 2023 to July 2024. In San Francisco, overdose deaths are down from nearly 23%, through the most recent data released in November.
One of the families behind the billboards has been on the frontlines of the fight against fentanyl for half a decade.
"I knew it would be hard, but it hit different. To see him on up it, he shouldn't be there," said Lisa Marquez. She was looking at the billboard showing a picture of her son, Fernando, who died in 2020 due to an accidental fentanyl overdose. He was only 17-years-old.
"There's so many young people on there. These are kids," she said through tears.
It's part of a fentanyl awareness campaign where the pictures of 31 young people who died of overdoses are featured on a digital billboard off Highway 101 near the San Jose International Airport.
"Each angel is being displayed over 1,200 times a day and it's on the busiest intersections on travel holidays," said Michelle Sawyer. She's the one who helped organize the billboard ads.
Sawyer and her husband founded Micah's Hugs, a nonprofit named after her stepson who died of an overdose. Their mission is to educate people about the dangers of fentanyl as well as teach people about Narcan, a medication that can reverse an overdose.
"A lot people don't even know about fentanyl and don't know the dangers of it. A lot of fake pills out there laced with fentanyl and you can't tell the difference if it's counterfeit or if it's real," Sawyer told CBS News Bay Area.
She also organized this group of parents coming together to see their children featured on the billboard - a club no one wants to be a part of - but one that offers support when they need it most.
"We are all going through the same emotions. It's all going through the same ups and downs. One day we are feeling good and the next day we can't even get out of bed," says Marquez.
The digital ads will be shown on this billboard at 101 near Trimble Road until Sunday night then will be displayed on a different digital billboard over by the Oakland International Airport starting on Monday.
