Youngkin announces statewide expansion of anti-fentanyl campaign

(The Center Square) — An anti-fentanyl campaign is expanding in the commonwealth with a new awareness campaign.

Five Virginians per day die from fentanyl, according to an oft-cited statistic from Gov. Glenn Youngkin. As traffickers continue to flood the U.S. border with the deadly drug, the governor and First Lady Suzanne Youngkin have been at the forefront of several statewide efforts to combat its abuse.

At Caritas, a Richmond nonprofit that helps people who are homeless or fighting addiction, the Youngkins announced an expansion of the It Only Takes One initiative – an awareness campaign alerting parents and caregivers of fentanyl’s potency and presence in most counterfeit pills. The campaign began in Roanoke in January but is now going statewide.

“We hope to ensure that every family has the resources and information needed to protect their children from this deadly threat. This campaign is about turning awareness into real action and making a lasting difference in saving lives,” said Suzanne Youngkin.

The first lady plans to visit “schools, Community Service Boards, churches and recovery centers” in areas across the commonwealth that have been hit harder by the fentanyl epidemic.

In addition, the administration has created another program, the Fentanyl Families Ambassador Program, to work in tandem with the initiative and serve as a platform for families impacted by the epidemic to “share their stories and raise community awareness.”

It Only Takes One itself piggybacks on a similar campaign led by the attorney general’s office, One Pill Can Kill, an education and prevention initiative modeled after the Drug Enforcement Administration’s national campaign and slated to end in October.

Like education, mental health care has been a recurring theme of the Youngkin administration largely through introducing a plan at the end of the governor’s first year in office to “[transform] the way behavioral health care is delivered” in Virginia.