PHOENIX — Maricopa County Attorney, Rachel Mitchell told students and parents at Goldwater High School in Phoenix that fentanyl continues to spread across the Valley and that her office will actively prosecute those involved in the drug trade.

“We have been very clear in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, if someone is bringing this poison into Maricopa County, into our community, they are going to be charged and prosecuted,” Mitchell said.

Also speaking was Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman, who represents District 4 that covers much of the northwest Valley. Hickman said fentanyl related deaths have increased 5,400% since 2015 in Maricopa County alone.

According to the DEA, half of all fentanyl that comes into the U.S. streams through Arizona. Throughout the decades there have been different drugs that have risen to popularity and increased in usage. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1990s it was prescription opioids, in 2010s it was heroin, and since 2013 synthetic opioids have been the main cause of drug-related deaths.

Board members and Mitchell all stressed the importance of understanding fentanyl has no discrimination. Any demographic of people can be impacted, including the children who attend the high school this conference took place.

“It’s definitely not a recreational drug, it is poison. I’ve been trying to rebrand that, kids understand poison,” Hickman said.

On March 17, 2024 Noah Ayala passed away from a synthetic opioid overdose. The 17-year-old was set to graduate from Desert Mountain High School, until Ayala’s brother found him unresponsive in his room. The family of Ayala shared their story to raise awareness about the strength of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. According to the family, it was Ayala’s first time using synthetic opioids.

“In a world where fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are so powerful and so deadly, it only takes one… behind every statistic there is a name,” said Noah’s father Gus Ayala.

The discussion of fentanyl was primarily focused on its entry to the lives of adolescents in Maricopa County; however, many concerned audience members pointed out the community-wide disturbance.

At the end of the conference the discussion was opened to all who attended, and one community member mentioned the prevalence of people using fentanyl in public. Police officer Kenny Silvia explained how the problem boils down to lack of resources from police and fire departments.

“Do I go after a guy that’s selling 1,000 pills a week, or do I try to locate the guy that’s selling 30,000 pills a week… As soon as you get one, and arrest one person and they get prosecuted, another one pops up,“ Silvia said.

Audience members like parent Amy Battin shared personal stories of how fentanyl has hurt their families.

“I have a sister-in-law who is currently abusing fentanyl, and it’s awful. It destroys families and it destroys lives,” Battin said. “She’s a middle-class adult woman. She got her hands on it, and now she can’t stop using it.”

According to Hickman, four people die every day due to fentanyl in Maricopa County. To combat this, NotmyKid, Narcotics Anonymous and more groups offered additional resources to the community to help any students who could be dealing with addiction, or know someone who is.

“Young people should be able to learn from their mistakes, not die from them,” Mitchell said.

Maria Loiseau is a student at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.