'Insidious poison': Parents demand action from Congress after their kids were killed by fentanyl

Two parents whose sons died from fentanyl usage shared their stories before federal lawmakers Tuesday during a hearing centered on combating the opioid crisis, with one mother pointing blame at social media companies who enable drug dealers and cartels to operate.
Bridgette Norring, founder of the Devin J. Norring Foundation, submitted testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, recounting how her son Devin died from fentanyl poisoning five years ago.
The mother said her son "was your average teenager" with a "passion for football, skateboarding, [motorcross biking] and music" who also suffered from "blackout migraines and dental pain."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Norring said her son "was desperate to relieve his pain." Unknown to Norring and her husband, Devin met a drug dealer via Snapchat who supplied him with fentanyl.
"My youngest son, Caden, who was only 14 at the time, found his older brother unresponsive after picking the lock on Devin's bedroom door to try and wake him the following morning," she recounted.
"His bedroom should have been the safest place in the world. As I held him one last time before the medical examiner took him, I made a promise to Devin that I would do something so that his death would not be in vain."
Norring told the committee that the crisis "has so many facets to it" that all need to be addressed with "care, empathy, and courage." She emphasized the importance of holding social media platforms to account for their alleged part in enabling dealers to sell fentanyl to young people.
"Snapchat is the largest open-air drug market there is," she continued. "On Snapchat, cartels lie in wait to sell their poison through any means necessary because they know that the platform will help them find new customers."
"Snapchat recommends children become friends with drug dealers, rewards kids for connecting, and makes sure that there is very little risk of getting caught and charged with a crime."
She urged senators to pass multiple legislation pieces, including the Kids Online Safety Act, the Cooper Davis & Devin Norring Act and the HALT Fentanyl Act. She labeled the bills "valuable and pertinent tools in the toolbox to hopefully put an end to this crisis."

Jaime Puerta, president and co-founder of the California-based group Victims Of Illicit Drugs, testified about the death of his teenage son, Daniel Puerta-Johnson.
"My son was not a habitual drug user by any sense of the word, nor had he been diagnosed with substance use disorder, but he was diagnosed with ADHD and depression," Puerta said.
On April 1, 2020, Puerta's son was found unresponsive due to an overdose. Although Daniel was rushed to the hospital, medical experts were unable to revive him, and his health deteriorated over the next few days.
"[H]is mother, Denise, and I made the agonizing decision to discontinue all life support efforts. On April 6th, 2020, at 3:45 p.m., all life support was discontinued," Puerta testified.
"His mother, Denise, got into his hospital bed and laid next to him, gently stroking his beautiful head of dark brown hair, and I was holding his right hand when he drew his last breath at exactly 5:08 p.m."
It turned out that Peurta's son unknowingly ingested a pill filled with fentanyl, falsely thinking that it was a nonlethal blue M30 Oxycodone pill.
"What everybody fails to realize is that their nonaddicted children, loved ones, students or employees could be affected by a one-time fentanyl use," he said.
"People from all walks of life that are out there who want to study just a little bit harder and take what they think is a pharmaceutical Adderall, or are out Friday or Saturday night and want to have a little bit more fun, or are stressed out because of finals, or are having trouble with their relationships and just want to relax and take a Xanax, or are suffering from either emotional or physical trauma, can fall victim to this insidious poison."
Puerta urged senators to place fentanyl in the Schedule I drug category, which would legally recognize it as having no accepted medical purpose and a high risk of abuse.
The dangerous drug continues to claim tens of thousands of lives a year in the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were over 74,000 synthetic opioid deaths in the country in 2023.
Others who testified before the Senate committee included Dr. Timothy W. Westlake, an emergency physician with ProHealth Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin; Cecilia Farfán, an affiliated researcher with the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California San Diego; and Sheriff Donald Barnes, vice president for Homeland Security at the Major County Sheriffs of America and sheriff-coroner of Orange County, California.