Southern California's Fight Against the Fentanyl Crisis

This investigative news piece explores the insufficient fentanyl education in Southern California and highlights the organizations that are revolutionizing how society confronts drug poisoning.

Fentanyl poisoning is not a localized issue, but it was important for my group and I to focus on its effects in Southern California where we currently reside. Isolating the region allowed for us to look at which communities are lacking fentanyl education and where change must actively be pushed for. Hopefully, through our news piece, we are able to expand the fentanyl education resources in schools across all of Southern California, using the example of USC as a strong framework.
The biggest learning curve through this project was pivoting when the story went a different route than we had expected. After talking to Amy at her fentanyl presentation, we learned that schools are not necessarily as resistant to talking about drugs as we perceived, but their specific educational outreach has been poor and unsuccessful. By switching our focus to how drugs like fentanyl are used rather than simply awareness of the drug, we were able to hone in on the current issue that Southern California faces.
The most fulfilling part of this piece was getting to collaborate with two wonderful classmates to research ferociously, challenge our ideas about fentanyl, and make each other better investigators.