Death by Fentanyl

I lost another patient to fentanyl—the third since 2020. Like the first two, he died young, healthy, and not of an overdose. He was poisoned.

His parents, (legal) immigrants to the US, came to see me at my office during his scheduled weekly therapy session to share news of his death. I had always considered his father to be a calm, peaceful, and conflict-avoidant man. Today, though, he could barely control his anger. “I don’t understand why here in America people aren’t hanged—in public—for killing our children.”