Addiction Medicine Made Easy | Fighting back against addiction

Fentanyl High: A Teen Filmmaker's Fight Against the Opioid Crisis

• Casey Grover, MD, FACEP, FASAM

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Kyle Santoro, a 19-year-old filmmaker, created the documentary "Fentanyl High" to explore teenage psychology behind substance abuse after witnessing overdoses at his high school. His film takes a peer-to-peer approach to addiction education, removing stigma and creating spaces for vulnerable conversations about why teens turn to substances.

Kyle and Dr Grover discuss his experiences making the film and what he has learned through making it:

• Kyle began the project after a classmate overdosed in a school bathroom and administrators never acknowledged the incident
• Traditional school responses to substance use often involve punishment and shame rather than compassion and understanding
• Several teens who participated in making the documentary achieved sobriety through the therapeutic process of sharing their stories
• Film screenings serve as community events with resources, panel discussions, and free naloxone distribution
• Schools often resist hosting screenings due to fear of being labeled as having a drug problem
• The documentary has been screened across multiple states creating a "domino effect" of awareness in communities
• Kyle raised $75,000 to produce the film through community sponsors and organizations
• Prevention efforts need more youth representation to create effective messaging that resonates with teens
• The film emphasizes the importance of parents maintaining open communication with their teenagers

If you want to learn more about Kyle's film, visit fentanylhigh.com.

To contact Dr. Grover: ammadeeasy@fastmail.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Addiction Medicine Made Easy Podcast. Hey there, I'm Dr Casey Grover, an addiction medicine doctor based on California's Central Coast. For 14 years I worked in the emergency department, seeing countless patients struggling with addiction. Now I'm on the other side of the fight, helping people rebuild their lives when drugs and alcohol take control. Thanks for tuning in. Let's get started. I am really excited about this episode here in the United States.

Speaker 1:

Fentanyl is a major problem. It is the dominant opioid in the illicit market and, as we all know, it's extremely potent and has therefore caused thousands and thousands of overdoses. I am very grateful that, in my role as an addiction medicine doctor, I am part of the fight against fentanyl. By treating patients with opioid use disorder, I help them to stop using fentanyl.

Speaker 1:

Now you might think that a teenager who doesn't have any medical training might feel that she or he couldn't do anything about fentanyl, but for this episode, I had the honor and pleasure to interview Kyle Santoro, who is a 19-year-old filmmaker who created a documentary about fentanyl in his community to educate about fentanyl and the reason why teens use substances. His documentary is called Fentanyl High. I've seen it and it's really well done. Is called Fentanyl High I've seen it and it's really well done. Kyle and I spoke about his documentary for this episode and I learned so much about how we can help teenagers who are using substances. If you want to learn about Kyle's film, you can go to fentanylhighcom. And with that, let's get into my conversation with Kyle, and with that, let's get into my conversation with Kyle.

Speaker 2:

All right, kyle. Well, I am so honored to get to speak to you today. Tell us who you are and what you do. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm Kyle Santoro. I'm a 19-year-old, I'm currently a freshman at Ohio State and I'm a filmmaker, and for the past year and a half to two years, I've been working on the distribution of my first feature film, fentanyl High, which specifically dives into the teenage psychology behind substance abuse and the fentanyl epidemic.

Speaker 1:

How did you get started on this topic?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so specifically with this topic of teenage substance abuse, it was during my junior year of high school. We in the community in the Los Gatos community I went to Los Gatos High School we had a lot of overdoses, especially coming out of COVID. During COVID there were a lot of overdoses, and so there was actually one of my peers on campus that actually overdosed in the bathroom on campus and this was during the first day of school and it was also the first day of our new principal's job at the time and he was the one who had to revive him. But after that incident it wasn't talked about. Nobody really brought that up. In fact, the school I don't believe ever even admitted to that happening, even though everyone saw the paramedics come onto campus, everyone was questioning it, but it was never addressed and nobody ever saw him again. He kind of moved away and and you know that it just became taboo to talk about that and it was just never addressed. And so you know it already had me asking questions of why. Why, first of all, was he experimenting? And of all, why was the school not doing anything about this? It's not like every kid is experimenting with M30 pills on campus. So you know that's already a hard question of why that's happening. And it's an analogy that I heard from a parent once was if you walk in on a kid crying in the school bathroom, you're going to ask him why are you crying? You're going to ask him why are you crying, you're going to comfort him. You're going to get the appropriate level of care for that kid.

Speaker 2:

But with drugs, schools tend to specifically go after them with disciplinary actions of expulsion or suspending the kid. Calling your parents. That brings a level of shame, a level of embarrassment to the kid. Calling your parents. That brings a level of shame, a level of embarrassment to the teen and even in fact, a lot of the teens that are faced with disciplinary actions on campus tend to become even more down low about their drug use or have more secrecy around that. So those administrators that have these types of actions or consequences for kids who use substances it's very outdated and especially in a time where fentanyl is so potent and so dangerous. He could have passed on campus and nobody wants that, and he was 17 at the time and it's just.

Speaker 2:

There's always a reason behind it. And it's just, there's always a reason behind it and a lot of teens fall into unhealthy coping mechanisms due to domestic issues, peer pressure, you know, academic pressure there's so many things that are going on during teenagehood. I feel like there are just so many reasons that contribute to why somebody may self-medicate at a very young age. And, you know, for an educational standpoint we really need to do better, not only as local communities, as educators, as even a nation, to really address all this taboo around substance abuse, because, you know, teens should not be dying of this.

Speaker 2:

And so that, just it really got to me at that age, because that's also an age where experimentation is very common with alcohol, with drugs, with all kinds of stuff at that age, and so that awareness just was not there on campus and I wanted to use my passion of filmmaking to really bring that out and actually inspire people to actually do the same with creating a platform where people can actually talk about this and actually, because nobody was taking that leadership and I just felt like, you know, if no one's going to do this, why not it be a teenager, so that other teens can resonate with this message of peer-to-peer communication around this specific topic of fentanyl and substance abuse so you are very articulate in being able to share what you know about addiction.

Speaker 1:

How much did you learn from making the film itself versus what you knew before?

Speaker 2:

so before I started the film I really I did not know that much about the fentanyl epidemic. I didn't really know too much about substance abuse and the causes behind it, the different stigmas that are associated with it, because I was 16 at the time and so I was going through all of this myself and blending into the high school population and just trying to figure out myself, figure out who I am. But at that time I was just asking so many questions and so it kind of led to this rabbit hole of just digging deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. And so throughout that process of research a lot just started coming up, and during the filmmaking process of interacting with parents who have lost their kids to fentanyl within the past few years they're just with each of their unique answers and perspectives, it really made me realize that there are so many layers to substance abuse and, specifically with teenagers and this whole epidemic, there are just so many layers that contribute to it so that just it had me. It really made me branch out and really try to get all these different perspectives. So, for example, parents who have lost their teens to fentanyl poisoning, teens who who experiment, government officials their kind of perspective on this. Pediatricians who work directly with teens who are coping with substances, and county officials. So just really creating this gamma of perspectives to then kind of align all the common themes that I'm seeing and also the things that aren't working and the things that are working and kind of figuring out how can I make something out of that so that everybody can really resonate with what is being heard on the screen specifically.

Speaker 2:

But what I've learned throughout this process around substance abuse is, like I was saying earlier, there's always a reason, and it's very personal a lot of times, or whether that's influenced by your surroundings, your parents. There's just so many reasons that somebody would choose that and we as a society judge that, and that judgment can then create stigma and different harmful standards that we we hold each other to, and especially at a young age where there's so much pressure that's put on you, it's it's a very hard thing to cope with because you're also transitioning into adulthood, you're transitioning into a more mature identity that is also forced upon you in a lot of cases. So bringing the teens who I worked with in the project really be able to talk about their experiences, their perspectives on it, what they've gone through that made them self-medicate. It's just something that not only I had never heard at the time, but I knew that there's no way that you know they talk about that that often with other peers. And it's something that needs to be normalized because a lot of the teens who worked on this project it was extremely therapeutic for them to be able to express themselves and also express a lot of the pain and trauma that they've experienced in their lives that made them turn in that direction, towards substances, and so it was very therapeutic for them and in fact a lot of them are actually sober now after that project because they were able to dig deeper in themselves and discover their why, and in fact some of them even told me right after I interviewed them for the film that that was the first time they actually ever said that out loud and how they felt about their situation and how they turned to substances because of certain experiences they had.

Speaker 2:

And so normalizing this type of discussion is so important, you know, not only for an educational purpose but also just personal human experience. I mean it's just because it's taking an unhealthy form of escapism and creating a positive form of escapism out of it to be able to express what you've gone through and inspire others to do the same, because internalizing that at a very young age can be super dangerous with the amount of unhealthy coping mechanisms out there and the easy access that you can have to substances through social media, through technology, and so it's just a different landscape than, for example, like when my parents were younger, when they were my age, you know, and especially with overdosing, you had to take a lot of something back then to overdose. Now it's just two milligrams. You can be dead in the snap of a finger. So it's just, we have to change the way we approach this type of education around things that are taboo.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, so I agree 100 with your message, and it's funny because I had always thought, oh yeah, addiction they're just self-medicating. And so then I went and became an addiction medicine doctor and had a slightly different perspective. But yeah, at its simplest, addiction is using substances to self-regulate, right? People don't like how they feel, so they find a substance. I'm curious as to what you said when you said some of the students that you worked with for the film got sober in the process. That, to me, was an unexpected benefit of your film. I totally agree with you about raising awareness and making the conversation easier.

Speaker 2:

Talk to me, obviously without naming any names, but talk to me about what those students who got sober as they made the film, what their experience was so for the first time, a lot of the teens who worked on this project, they not only in the process of either acting or being interviewed had the opportunity to feel like they were not being judged for what they had to say out loud, because a lot of them did come from environments at home where they just did not have any type of open line of communication or trust with their parents, so they never actually even talked about things that could potentially create uncomfortable conversations. So for them to be able to on set when we were all working together and it's all teens working with teens, so it's people who you relate to at the same age and you're going through a lot together. We all went through COVID together. We knew how that was and how isolating that was, how people felt, just so, so down at that time, and so for us to all come together and have an opportunity to express ourselves, express our opinions and really accept each other. I think that really created a safe environment for those teens to acknowledge their past, acknowledge their experiences and really find peace with it and move on with it and move on Also with the film events that we were able to do. That was the first time where they got to publicly speak about their experience and a lot of times like, for example, we did a screening at a middle school for their sixth, seventh and eighth grade body and it was the first time where they had the opportunity to talk in front of teens who were younger than them and actually inspire them.

Speaker 2:

And so I think that that opportunity that the film gave them was so therapeutic in terms of not only accepting and acknowledging their situation and being able to piece that together with the why behind their substance abuse, but also to see it as a positive thing that can then push them in a direction where they can inspire other teens who maybe are going through the same thing to change that.

Speaker 2:

And so it was just there's so many angles that that contribute to it. But I think, most of all, the most important thing that they were able to get out of working on this project was just not internalizing their situation, not feeling like they're a pariah at this age, and I think that, and also just seeing change. I mean we were able to get schools to be able to incorporate this into their curriculum, and so we've had schools license it as a part of their PE curriculum, a part of their yearly assemblies that they're going to be screening to teens and families. So I think for them to be able to see their story and their message that is so personal to them, inspire teens and families to create that open line of communication that they may not have had growing up is something that inspired them to want to do more of that, to do more inspiring, to then work on themselves and create positive coping mechanisms, positive outlets for themselves.

Speaker 1:

You talked about doing screenings and we've screened your movie at several events here on the central coast of California.

Speaker 2:

Talk to me about how you actually set up a screening and the type of impact that you want your movie to have engage with communities or topics that the film covers specifically around mental health, substance abuse, lgbtq, wellness centers, acceptance programs there's just so many perspectives that the film covers, and so what we do with the film screenings, we try to incorporate all those agencies and have them be present at the film screenings, in collaboration with the schools, school districts, within that local community, to create a community event where we are screening the movie, we are distributing resources around those specific topics, around mental health, substance abuse, treatment for teens and wellness centers, and then also distributing free naloxone at all of the film screenings to then have that take action step after the film screening that you can have this device that can potentially save lives. So you're walking out of the film screening after watching the film with all of the messages from the film and then having something in the lobby with resources and with naloxone, to then feel like you're contributing to this movement of educating teens around substance abuse and also potentially being able to save a life. And so, with the impact that we want with these film screenings specifically, we really want not only teens and parents to know that if you're ever handed a pill, you should just assume that it can kill you. That's the first message and the second message would be don't assume like for parents, don't assume that your kid is not going to be that kid who may experiment with that. It's just a lot of the parents with whom I've worked thought the same thing my kid would never do that, or our community doesn't really have that kind of problem. My neighborhood doesn't really do that and so it's assuming is so dangerous nowadays.

Speaker 2:

And I feel like really maintaining that open line of communication within the household, making sure that your teen trusts you, that you have a safe environment where your teen can come to you for anything really just, really just. It helps to prevent that, because if your teenager is not receiving affection, validation, attention from you, they're going to go look for that in other places, whether that be parties, whether that be other places outside of your household that may contain unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drugs, alcohol. You just have to show your kid that you care, you know, and that could be as easy as just having real, sincere conversations with them all the time, but then also not avoiding uncomfortable topics, because a lot of times you'll. You will surprise your teen if you actually embrace it and they actually want that. They want to be able to trust you. They want somebody there to be there when they're feeling down, when they're feeling upset, when they're feeling insecure, because this, like I said, this, is a very hard age. I'm going through it myself. As a teenager, you're just you're, you're figuring out what your purpose is in this world, and so to have an open line of communication, have people who you can trust by your side, whether that's in your household, your friends, somebody who is so close to you, it's just so important for you to be able to navigate this life, this current situation that we're going through as teenagers.

Speaker 2:

As a country, there's just there's so much there, and so I feel like, on the educational side of things, schools really need to be more proactive around this. Multiple situations with communities where high schools avoided hosting a film screening of fentanyl high because they didn't want to be labeled as a school that has a drug problem. They didn't want bad press for their school. That, in my opinion, is short-term thinking, because if you were to have a teen in your community, a teen on your campus overdose from fentanyl, that bad press is coming to you anyways. So you really need to be hyper aware of the fact that this is everywhere. This isn't some far issue that's outside of your community. It's most likely in your community, but you are avoiding talking about it. So it's something that needs to be incorporated within an administrator standpoint or a curriculum-based program where we are educating teens not only about the drug epidemic, about fentanyl, but about the teenage psychology behind substance abuse.

Speaker 2:

What are you going through as a teenager that may lead you to self-medication?

Speaker 2:

Because I think a lot of teens, especially with stereotypes, with different cliques in high school, you can just assume that a certain group of kids in high school are going through that.

Speaker 2:

They're going to be self-medicating and we should just avoid that group of kids. That is not true at all and stereotypes clicks. You know the way we view view kids in high school like that. It's so outdated and it's not accurate at all. Every kid is going through something, and so we as a community, as a society, need to acknowledge that and really just have conversations about these tough topics and really embrace it, not only from a domestic standpoint, but also from an educational standpoint, because we don't need more teenagers dying in this society right now, because teenagers are going to be shaping our future and so we really need to be preserving the lives of teenagers right now, and so I think the best way we can do that is coming together, and so that's also why the model of the film screenings we host at Fenton Ohio incorporates all of these different agencies, different organizations that come together to support this message of acceptance and acknowledgement around substance abuse and teenage psychology.

Speaker 1:

Can you give me an example of a screening that went particularly well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we actually. One of my most memorable ones was the May 2nd film screening of Fennel High at the Real Theater in Santa Cruz. That was one of our most successful ones by far we had. And all the film screenings that we host are free, so there's no financial commitment to them. So we have to over market a lot of these events to really have a full house. And so the real theater film screening we had so many organizations come together to host that screening and we had around 400 people show up for that event.

Speaker 2:

And we host these events on weekdays because we tend to avoid weekends, where people have a lot of plans and you're trying to relax. So you know, tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays are usually best depending on the community as well, and usually I sit at the back of the film screenings and I just watch people's reactions. People's reactions and the amount of teens and parents that I saw lean on each other's shoulders throughout the film was really touching for me to just see them embrace each other. It's something that you really don't see. That often I've seen parents just crying and hugging their teens and it's just, it's moving to see that teens are being vulnerable and parents are acknowledging their teens and showing affection and, most of all, I just think, as a community having that vulnerability and showcasing it.

Speaker 2:

I just think it's so powerful to see that, and so we usually also have a panel discussion right after the film screening of the movie, which has different perspectives, such as first responders, public health officials, parents who have lost their teens to fentanyl from that specific community teens, and sometimes myself included. But it helps to create that community connection, to show that this is right. Here in our community, our first responders, our paramedics in our community are on the front line doing everything they can to help our teens. Our parents who have lost teens in our community are doing everything they can to spread awareness within our community. Our public health officials are trying their best, and so it's really showing the community effort.

Speaker 2:

But then also, you know, having that realization that it's not some epidemic that's far away, it's right here in our community and we need to be proactive about it. And so I think that the film screening at the Rio Theater was a great example of that, because people are taking time out of their Tuesday evening at 6 pm to come out here and be a part of this, and so I think it's really emotional for me to see parents and teens showing that vulnerability and also contributing to this movement of really talking about this and really undoing the taboo around this specific topic. So that one was definitely one of my favorite and most memorable film screenings of fentanyl high, also because a lot of my best friends lived in santa cruz. I'm always in santa cruz, so, yeah, that was, and it was a beautiful venue too, so that was one of my most memorable ones what's your next film project?

Speaker 2:

currently I'm writing a lot of short film screenplays, working on writing a screenplay for down the line, but right now in college I'm just doing as much as I can to absorb, absorb, absorb knowledge and learn as much as I can.

Speaker 2:

I'm currently an English major, so I'm absorbing and reading as much as I can Because for me, knowledge is empowerment. Knowledge and life experiences shape the way you think For me as an artist, what I create. So at this age in college, I'm doing as much as I can to create that knowledge base so that that can fuel and inspire the work that I will be creating. So I am working right now to create supplementary content under fentanyl high PSA campaign style videos that specifically dive into the cultural taboo in communities like the black community, latino latina community, asian community, what within those communities contribute to self-medication from a cultural standpoint, and so addressing that and incorporating those perspectives within those videos to really address this epidemic from a cultural standpoint. That's what I'm currently working on. But in terms of other projects, this summer I have almost four months of summer I will be creating a lot of short films that will fuel the way that I'm processing the different things that I'm learning, and I'm just doing a lot of studies.

Speaker 1:

Would you consider a film on a different substance? I mean, certainly in California methamphetamine has been a bit of a scourge, particularly with our homeless encampments. You drive up and down our freeways and there's tents all up and down them. Is there another substance you have an interest in studying?

Speaker 2:

Currently I haven't been looking into it. I'm also currently proactively still distributing fentanyl high to different communities across the country. So that has still been my main focus because we have been trying to reach a lot of rural communities in the Midwest and even the South, and so that's been my priority with that. But I would be definitely interested in exploring other substances because it's definitely related to the same message of the why behind self-medication and the dangers of the different substances out there. So that is definitely something that interests me. But currently, with the amount of time that I have, I'm still working to distribute Fennel Eye and eventually we'll put it on a platform, but we're just trying to get that community outreach as much as possible.

Speaker 1:

How was your movie received outside California, where it was filmed as much as possible? How was your movie received outside?

Speaker 2:

California where it was filmed. Yeah, we've had it in different communities. We had it screened in Washington, colorado, nevada, massachusetts, south Carolina and Indiana and so many other states, even in Canada. So we've been able to really get that out there within a short amount of time.

Speaker 2:

But, like I was saying, with stigma, a lot of the rural communities that we've screened fentanyl high in there's a lot of opposition to it due to the stigma around substance abuse. It's like the ostrich sticking its head in the sand kind of situation where they're just avoiding to talk about it, hoping that that will just not happen by not talking about it. But we were able to break through those stigmas and actually get it screened and collaborate with local officials and schools and agencies to host it and we're seeing a demand for it. So a lot of the communities that we screen fentanyl high and it creates almost a domino effect where you screen it once and then another local school nearby will say what's that and we want that screened, and then it just kind of goes on from there. We did see that in Santa Cruz. We've hosted over 10 screenings in Santa Cruz throughout the past year or so. That's definitely a model that we look up to and that we are trying to implement into all of the communities that we are screening fentanyl in.

Speaker 1:

You know it's funny, the other addiction doctor in my practice who happens to be my spouse, the very lovely Dr Rev Close. She and I often use fighting fentanyl as a lead-in to our lecture or a title, but you're actually fighting fentanyl. I mean, I have to say I'm honored to get to speak to you. You're 19 years old and you've done more for fighting back against fentanyl than most people I know, and I work in drug and alcohol treatment. That must be really empowering to have been able to have made such an impact.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. It's hard sometimes A lot of the parents with whom I've worked, after interviewing them and hearing their stories, sometimes it's hard to sleep because I picture up in Taipei, taiwan, where, in an Asian community, in a public school where it was completely, 100% Mandarin, and that community growing up there, that, like mental health, isn't even talked about there. So drug abuse, substance abuse, that's not even on the radar. And so when I moved back to this country for seventh grade and I walked in the bathroom and I see kids self-medicating in seventh grade, it was a culture shock for me. So at a very young age I was already asking these questions of why are these teens self-medicating? It's not like everybody in our school is doing this. For me at the time I only saw a few kids doing that in seventh grade. But to be self-medicating that early on in life, there's something that they went through that contributed to them doing that. And so at a very young age, in seventh grade, you know I was already asking those questions and so you know time comes around in high school where somebody almost dies on our campus and we also had multiple people in our community die it just.

Speaker 2:

It really all came together with just me using my passion to have that societal change and social justice aspect of my work, and so I'm I'm'm grateful, very grateful, for everybody who has helped me get to where I'm at, and everybody with whom I've worked, everybody who made this project possible I had to fundraise $75,000 to start the film and so all of the different agencies, sponsors and organizations that help contribute to it.

Speaker 2:

It's just showing how community effort can then spark change, and so that's really been. It's been a therapeutic process for me to work through my own trauma and and experiences from my past and to see that everybody else is going through similar things and, specifically as a team, that we are all figuring it out. But in the meantime, instead of turning towards unhealthy coping mechanisms, we can inspire others to turn towards positive outlets that can also inspire others to do the same and create change. So, for I felt that it was really important for me to take that torch and show that we don't have to turn to that and that you can actually use your passion, use something you're very passionate about, to create change and inspire others and inspire others. And so it was a very therapeutic process, not only for me, but for everybody who worked on the project. So I'm just extremely grateful for everything that's gotten me this far and gotten all the cast members this far and gotten the film this far.

Speaker 1:

Kyle, planet Earth and humanity are lucky to have you. This is incredible work that you are doing and I'm really impressed with your understanding of addiction as people not understanding what to do when they don't feel good.

Speaker 2:

We unfortunately have to wrap up, but tell me some last thoughts you have on what you've learned about this project and maybe some future aspirations in your life around how you've made such a positive impact around addiction with this project and maybe what you've learned about what you could do in the future in general for us to create opportunities for cross-collaboration between government agencies, schools and other programs and organizations that specifically deal with substance abuse and well-being for teens and mental health, because a lot of times as a teenager also being on campus seeing the effort that a lot of these organizations put into awareness campaigns a lot of times they do it on their own type of situation and it's not necessarily all coming together or it's very, very superficial or it's very superficial. So, for example, a lot of times schools will just design and create some type of poster that has a lot of information about signs of an overdose what to do if you run into somebody using substances on campus and then they just put that in the bathroom right next to the door, where everybody is just focusing on leaving the bathroom and not looking at what's next to the door. So they're trying, but it's not enough. Youth representatives that have the opportunity to really explain not only what is going on, what is, what are we going through as teens? What do I feel like as a teen is going to benefit and inspire other teens or get other teens to listen. There really isn't that incorporation of that teen perspective a lot, and I think that that really needs to change. We are seeing that more often and I think it's very, very impactful.

Speaker 2:

There are different youth commissions on a county level that help create awareness around this, but I feel like there just needs to be more of that on an administrator level, within school districts and within schools, within curriculum development.

Speaker 2:

An example of this is we had a curriculum in our district that specifically was about DEI, with incorporating different youth perspectives and youth stories from different cultures, and for a while I was the only teen on that board of all adults specifically talking about what they should do to inspire other teens, and I was only on.

Speaker 2:

I only went to two meetings and then I was never invited back. And I get it. There's a lot of bureaucracy within administration and all of that, but when it comes to something that is life-threatening, such as fentanyl, I just I think that there needs to be more collaboration with that and more incorporating teens. I mean, I think that there needs to be more, more collaboration with that and more incorporating teens. I mean especially with knowing that teens are very high risk at this age with experimentation and overdose. So I just I feel like we as a society, we as a culture, need to change and destigmatize drug. We need to incorporate the youth voices or give the youth the opportunity to be able to talk about their experiences and also share what they think would be beneficial for people their age. I think that that is such a valuable opportunity that we need to give teenagers across the country.

Speaker 1:

I agree. Well, Kyle, I have learned so much about your work today. Thank you so much for your time and for the great work that you do.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, casey, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Before we wrap up, a huge thank you to the Montage Health Foundation for backing my mission to create fun, engaging education on addiction, and a shout out to the nonprofit Central Coast Overdose Prevention for teaming up with me on this podcast. Our partnership helps me get the word out about how to treat addiction and prevent overdoses To those healthcare providers out there treating patients with addiction. You're doing life-saving work and thank you for what you do For everyone else tuning in. Thank you for taking the time to learn about addiction. It's a fight we cannot win without awareness and action. There's still so much we can do to improve how addiction is treated. Together we can make it happen. Thanks for listening and remember treating addiction saves lives.