Arizona schools received over 4,000 overdose kits this past week, contributing to the thousands they have and will continue to receive.
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) supplied the Narcan kits through its School Training Overdose and Intelligence Taskforce (STOP-IT) initiative.
In a press release, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne hailed the kits as “lifesaving,” and pledged for more to be coming.
“The results have been excellent and represent my ongoing commitment to the health and safety of school-aged children,” said Horne. “They are to be congratulated for doing a tremendous amount of work in a short time and getting tangible results that will help protect children. We are grateful to the 20 medical societies, government agencies and state programs that have signed a letter of support promoting the integration of STOP-IT resources into our schools.”
Apart from this latest installment, ADE has supplied about 4,400 kits to 144 education agencies across the state.
Horne launched STOP-IT last May to supply the kits to schools. Last November, ADE announced that it began deliveries of over 16,000 kits in coordination with the Arizona Department of Emergency & Military Affairs (DEMA).
Schools signed up for these Narcan overdose kits through ADE’s online form after receiving permission from their districts.
ADE pledged to continue replenishment of overdose kits to ensure schools’ continued ability to handle opioid emergencies.
Nearly 60 percent of all fentanyl in the country comes through Arizona. Maricopa County maintains the second-highest overdose death rate among youth, according to Horne.
“Within the past three years, overdoses rose to the third leading cause of death in youth under age 18,” said Horne. “And according to the Department of Health Services, our state has recorded more than 1,300 non-fatal overdoses and 224 deaths in our kids since 2017. Those figures represent tragic situations for children and their families. As a state, we must do as much as possible to combat this scourge, which is why I am so proud of the meaningful progress made by the STOP-IT taskforce.”
Arizona reported over 1,900 opioid-related deaths and over 4,000 overdoses in 2023. 26 of those opioid-related deaths were among minors (those under the age of 17).
Last year, AZDHS recorded over 3,900 non-fatal opioid overdoses and over 1,300 confirmed opioid deaths. Total non-fatal overdoses among minors amounted to 94. Overdose deaths among minors for this year amounted to less than 10.
In partnership with ADE to make STOP-IT possible are the Arizona School Resource Officers Association, Arizona Counter Drug Task Force, Arizona School Administrators Association, Arizona Association of School Business Officials, Arizona Department of Health Services, Arizona School Boards Association, Arizona Society of Addiction Medicine, Arizona School Counselors Association, Arizona Chapter of the American College of Physicians, Arizona Association of School Psychologists, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Arizona Interscholastic Association, Arizona Nurses Association, Arizona Medical Association, Arizona Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Arizona Chapter of the National Safety Council, National Association of School Nurses, School Nurses Association of Arizona, and the Substance Awareness Coalition Leaders of Arizona.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Border security was again a hot topic on the first day of the Arizona Legislative session for 2025.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs gave her State of the State address on Monday and discussed the issue of border security during her speech. Hobbs said, “A truly thriving economy means security for our families and neighbors. That’s why safe communities are a core pillar of the Arizona Promise and why I’ve made border security a top priority… We must remain vigilant in protecting Arizonans from the cartels who seek to do us harm. The fentanyl crisis is one of the greatest threats to public safety in our state’s history and requires a collaborative approach across state, local, and federal governments. When we work together, we protect Arizona families. I will continue working with this legislature to protect our border because until all Arizonans feel secure in their communities, we will not be able to deliver on our Promise of freedom and opportunity.”
Republicans were not amused by the governor’s comments, highlighting the many times she has opposed efforts to secure the border and protect Arizona communities from the harms and dangers wrought by illegal immigration. Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said, “When the Governor promised to prioritize border security last year, her actions did not match her words. She vetoed our border bills. But, the voters spoke loud and clear last November. They want their government to enforce the law and secure our open border. We will support President Trump and our law enforcement in their efforts to protect Arizonans from the crime pouring into our communities and jeopardizing our national security.”
Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope added, “If the Governor or any other elected leaders choose to stand in the way…get ready for court. The Republican-led Arizona Legislature vows to uphold the rule of law, and we will exhaust all legal options to ensure the chaos we’ve lived for the past four years comes to an end.”
Late last year, Hobbs released an ambiguous post on her official X account, indirectly taking aim at the Trump administration’s forthcoming actions on the border after his momentous victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the historic November General Election. She said, “Securing our border is not a red issue or a blue issue. It’s an Arizona issue and an American issue. I’ll work with anyone to secure our border while standing up to misguided policies that attack Arizonans.”
Thus far in her administration, Hobbs has resisted most attempts by Republicans to maximize Arizona’s resources and laws to better protect communities against the harms from illegal immigration. That resistance led to state legislative Republicans sending a border security ballot measure to voters this past November – Proposition 314, which gave local law enforcement more tools to combat illegal immigration across the state. Arizona Republicans are expected to continue to search for ways to assist the Trump Administration to stop the flow of illegal immigration into and through their state over the next two years.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The Buckeye Police Department announced the seizure of 8,000 fentanyl pills and the arrest of four people in connection with a traffic stop near Yuma Road and Verrado Way. The lethal fentanyl M-30 pills were seized when a Buckeye police officer observed an SUV committing several traffic violations and initiated a pull-over. According to a statement from the department posted to social media, the officer determined that the driver of the vehicle had a suspended driver’s license and some of their passengers had active arrest warrants.
A search of the vehicle revealed eight bags containing 1,000 of the deadly pills each. All four occupants were placed under arrest.
Buckeye Police reporting shows that drug/narcotic offenses were down in 2023 compared to 2021 figures but are trending upward after a multiyear low in 2022. Behind theft/larceny and destruction of property, drug related charges represent approximately 12% of the city’s overall crime.
As reported by AZ Free News in June, the Common Sense Institute Arizona (CSI) released a comprehensive report on “Arizona’s Ongoing Fentanyl Crisis,” for 2024. The grim findings revealed that opioid-related encounters in Arizona hospitals leapt from 41,400 to 56,600 or approximately 37% from 2015-2019, and the DEA seized enough fentanyl in the state of Arizona to kill every resident fourteen times over. From 2020 and 2022, Fentanyl seized by the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) increased 665% from 239 to an estimated 1,828 pounds, CSI stated, citing data shared by DPS. National seizures of fentanyl reported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency increased by 320% from 6,800 pounds in 2019 to 29,200 in 2024.
🚨 The DEA seized enough fentanyl in Arizona alone to kill every Arizonan 14 times over, if the seizures were of pure fentanyl and assuming a potentially fatal dose is at least 2 mg.
— Common Sense Institute Arizona (@CSInstituteAZ) June 25, 2024
In the DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024, the agency reports that, “Fentanyl manufactured by the Mexican cartels is the main driver behind the ongoing epidemic of drug poisoning deaths in the United States… China-based chemical suppliers are the main source of the chemicals used in the production of illicit fentanyl.”
Federal agents at the border were busy earlier this month to stop dangerous drugs from escaping into American communities.
On September 23, Nogales Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Area Port Director Michael W. Humphries announced that his port of entry had seized more than 1.5 million fentanyl pills over four days at the start of the month.
Over 1.5 million fentanyl pills seized in a 4-day period by CBP officers at the Nogales POE 9/5: About 527,065 fentanyl pills hidden throughout a car 9/6: About 1,013,814 fentanyl pills concealed throughout a car (photos) 9/8: About 54,813 fentanyl pills hidden in a car’s battery pic.twitter.com/VAF7siKUOK
— Port Director Michael W. Humphries (@CBPPortDirNOG) September 23, 2024
According to Director Humphries, the pills were discovered and apprehended on September 5 (approximately 527,000 pills in a car), September 6 (approximately 1,000,000 pills in a car), and September 8 (approximately 55,000 pills in a car battery).
Just days after these seizures, Humphries revealed that his officers had encountered over 341 pounds of illegal meth on a rail box car.
9/10: CBP officers conducting rail operations at the Nogales POE seized 341.6 lbs meth hidden in the front and rear support beams of a rail box car. Officers have recently made significant interceptions of narcotics in rail, commercial operations, cars, pedestrians and outbound. pic.twitter.com/BSftBFWFBh
— Port Director Michael W. Humphries (@CBPPortDirNOG) September 24, 2024
In Fiscal Year 2024, the Tucson CPB Field Office and Tucson Sector have interdicted more than 30,000 pounds of fentanyl, with one month left in the twelve-month calendar. Last fiscal year, over 25,000 pounds of fentanyl were apprehended in that section of the border.
These seizures are only a fraction of the drugs escaping detection from law enforcement into communities all across the nation. In 2022, The Washington Postpublished an article about the proliferation of fentanyl from Mexico to the United States, citing estimations from unnamed federal drug agents that “they are seizing 5 to 10 percent of the drugs coming from Mexico – if that much.” The article also stated that “agents say it has been nearly impossible to stop fentanyl trafficking” at the border.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
On Wednesday evening, a crowd of over 2,000 people, both at Generation Church in Mesa and in overflow seating gathered by Turning Point USA, greeted Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance for a rally and vote chasing event. During the event, Vance and TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk took to the stage and made a brutal case against a Kamala Harris presidency.
In their conversation before taking questions from the audience, Vance and Kirk discussed the plagues of fentanyl and child sex trafficking and the toll they are taking on not only Arizona, but on the nation as a whole. Vance was highly critical of Harris’ border policy and attempts to co-opt the visual of the border wall constructed under President Donald Trump’s administration for her campaign ads. They addressed inflation robbing Arizonans and Americans alike of wealth, and in particular stealing from Phoenix the coveted title of ‘most affordable city.’
First and foremost however, Vance criticized Harris as “terrified of the media because she’s terrified of the American people because she knows that if she speaks off the cuff, she’s going to let them know just how completely radical she is.” He stressed, “She is exactly what she said she was. She’s exactly what she has governed as, and the reason why she only talks to the American people with a teleprompter sitting in between them is because she knows the American people can smell a fraud, and she is a fraud. And we have to remind people of it.”
Kirk and Vance brought the combined interests of Harris and Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz to the forefront as well, recalling Harris’ donation to a bail fund for those Summer 2020 rioters who burned Minneapolis.
Vance observed, “It’s almost hard to believe Charlie, but I looked this up. It actually is true. Remember when there were rioters in the summer of 2020 that burned down the City of Minneapolis and a bunch of other cities on top of it. Now they didn’t catch a whole lot of them, but they did catch some of those rioters, and guess who was at the front of the line trying to bail them out of prison. Kamala Harris, who now says that she supports police officers. We can never let her forget it. She was bailing out the people who were attacking police officers and burning down a great American city. That is the record of Kamala Harris, and let’s have a President like Donald J. Trump who actually supports our police officers to keep us safe. It’s very simple stuff.”
Perhaps most critically though, Vance skewered Harris for the obvious discrepancy of effectively running away from her own three years as a leading figure in the self-styled Biden-Harris administration. When reminded by Kirk of the disconnect, he answered:
“Charlie, it, it takes a special level of shamelessness. Maybe I’ve only been in politics for two years, so I just haven’t reached that level, but to look at the American people, even though she’s reading off a teleprompter and to say, on day one, we’re going to make groceries and housing more affordable on day one. Kamala Harris says this, ‘We’re going to tackle the American southern border.’ Kamala, day one was 3 and a half years ago! What the hell have you been doing the whole time?”
Vance recovered from the momentary slip of profanity in the Church setting, mentioning that the pastors on hand were “going to have to forgive me because I do sometimes talk like my Mamaw, and she was a woman of a very serious Christian faith, but she did love the f-word every now and then.”
Pressing into the issue of fentanyl, Vance discussed his mother’s struggle with addiction and remarked that when she nearly died from an overdose during his childhood, surely, fentanyl would have killed her. He also addressed the child sex trafficking crisis noting, “This is what our government leaders have done. 320,000 kids, and we know, by the way, a lot of those kids have lost their lives.”
He continued, “A lot of those kids are being sex trafficked by some of the most evil people in the world. This is the wages of Kamala Harris’s disastrous border policy, and it’s happening every day in this country.
We have to remember that they told us that Kamala Harris was the compassionate person when it came to the border. Remember when they said Donald Trump is the person who wanted to separate families? Now the way that you keep families together is to send a message that if you want to come through to this country, you’ve got to come through the proper channels. When you empower these cartels, when you tell everybody that they can come across illegally, that’s what causes family separation on an industrial scale. Never let them tell you that Kamala Harris’s border policies are compassionate. There are 320,000 voices of children crying out telling us, Kamala Harris is not compassionate. She is a disaster, and we cannot promote her to the Oval Office.”
