LOS ANGELES — When Tyler Shamash survived a drug overdose at 19, his mother, Juli, asked his doctor several times if he’d been tested for fentanyl.
Tyler had been in and out of sober living homes in Los Angeles after battling addiction for years, and his family suspected he may have been taking illicit drugs. The doctor said they had run a standard drug test and fentanyl hadn’t come up in the toxicology screen.
Juli Shamash believes the doctor didn’t know that fentanyl isn’t included in the standard test run in emergency rooms across the country. A standard drug test panel in most emergency rooms checks only for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, PCP and natural and semi-synthetic opioids (like heroin and oxycodone) — but not synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Read more on this story at NBCNews.com and watch “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.
Tyler Shamash overdosed again the next day and died. His family found out five months later, after the coroner ran a toxicology report, that fentanyl was found in his system.
“I was so in disbelief because you trust doctors; you go to doctors for advice,” Shamash told NBC News. “It’s unbelievable to me that every institution isn’t testing for it [fentanyl]. Why wouldn’t you? But then I think the answer to that is: They think they are.”
Her son’s death in 2018 pushed Shamash to advocate for legislation that would require a sixth test be added for fentanyl. Through a bipartisan effort, Tyler’s Law passed unanimously and took effect at the beginning of 2023 in California — the first, and so far only, state to do so, though the law is set to expire in just five years.
Overdose deaths associated with fentanyl have surpassed those due to heroin or other opioids. In 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized 50.6 million fentanyl-laced pills masquerading as regulated prescription pills like Xanax or oxycodone and more than 10,000 pounds of…
Read the full article here