DEAR MOM AND DAD,

DEAR MOM AND DAD,

Let me introduce myself.

I am the drug dealer looking for your child.

You probably won’t see me standing outside their school. I rarely do my own dirty work. I use other young people, sometimes children your child already knows and trusts, to carry my drugs, deliver my messages and introduce me to my next customer.

And yes, I am around elementary schools and high schools alike.

Age does not matter to me.

I am searching for your child.

You think I am looking for someone else’s child. The neglected child. The troubled child. The child with the terrible home life. The child struggling with sadness, trauma or depression. The child people once described as coming from “the wrong side of the tracks.”

But in the age of fentanyl, there is no longer another side of the tracks.

I am everywhere.

I am in struggling neighbourhoods and behind the gates of expensive homes. I am in city schools, small towns, sports teams, parties and private messages on your child’s phone.

Money does not frighten me.

Good grades do not stop me.

Rules do not keep me out.

A loving family does not make your child immune.

I have learned how to make drugs look harmless.

I can disguise poison as a colourful pill. I can stamp it with a familiar logo. I can hide it inside something your child believes is prescription medication. I can arrive through a friend, a classmate or someone they met online.

I know your child wants to fit in.

I know they are curious. I know they sometimes believe they are invincible. I know they trust their friends more than they trust your warnings.

Those are the doors I use to enter.

Make no mistake: you and I are at war.

You want to protect your child’s life.

I want their curiosity. Then I want their trust. Then I want their money. Eventually, I will take their health, their dreams, their family and every piece of themselves they once believed could never be taken.

Look at the young people living on our streets.

They were once children just like yours.

They had favourite foods, inside jokes, birthday parties and dreams. They did not grow up wanting to become dependent on drugs or live without a home. Their parents did not choose this nightmare either.

Most families believed it could never happen to them, until it did.

Do not wait until your child is offered a pill.

Do not soften the truth by saying only that drugs are “bad” or that they “might hurt you.” Those words are no longer enough. Today, one pill can contain something your child never intended to take. One decision can become a medical emergency. One experiment can become the last thing they ever do.

Teach them what drugs look like.

Teach them how dealers recruit.

Teach them that a pill from a friend is still a pill from an unknown source.

Teach them that it is better to lose a friendship, leave a party or call you at 2:00 in the morning than to gamble with their life.

Make sure they know they can call you without fear when they are in danger.

I have tricks you cannot even imagine.

Your greatest weapon is the truth.

So yes, scare your children. Scare them to death.

Not with monsters hiding beneath their beds, but with the monster actively searching for them.

Scare them with facts.

Scare them with real stories.

Scare them enough to walk away.

Then give them the knowledge, confidence and safe place to belong that will help them stay away.

Because if you are afraid that telling your child the truth about drugs will scare them, remember this:

The truth may frighten your child today.

But silence could leave you answering the phone call that every parent prays will never come.

Teach them before I reach them.

Because when I do, death may become the final lesson.

Signed,

The Dealer

Stop Before You Start.

Education Stops Addiction.

—McKayla’s Message