Fentanyl poisonings affect area families

Jake Jimenez was 23 when he was unwittingly poisoned by ingesting fentanyl. Alexandra Capelouto was 20. Both had been great students, played sports and had many friends and loved ones in their lives. They are just two of the many young adults who died due to drug dealers who are manufacturing counterfeit drugs.

Matt Capelouto of Temecula lost his daughter to fentanyl poisoning in December 2019. Since Alexandra Capelouto's death, he has connected with DrugInducedHomicide.org to advocate for legislation to make it tougher on drug-dealing criminals in hopes of stemming this epidemic.

"The advantage to drug dealers is that fentanyl is cheap, easy to smuggle into our country and highly addictive," Matt Capelouto said. "Those who die are merely viewed as collateral damage. The profits and benefits from synthetic drugs far outweigh those of natural plant-based drugs. It's not that drug dealers want to kill their customers; they simply just don't care if they do. It's reprehensible. Fentanyl has an extremely narrow therapeutic window, meaning the difference between a therapeutic benefit and death is razor thin, microscopic. Drug dealers don't have the training or skills to handle chemicals of this nature. This is one of the most dangerous chemicals ever made. Only licensed professionals and properly trained chemists should handle this drug."

Jake Jimenez's mother, Lisa Jimenez of Winchester, recalled her son as being kind, funny and athletic.

"His smile was so contagious, you couldn't help but smile back," she said. "He was always available to help a friend in need. He was good at just about everything he tried."

Jake Jimenez was physically fit with no known medical conditions and had been a wrestler throughout his time at Chaparral High School and for a year in college. Lisa Jimenez said her son, who died Sept. 28, 2020, made a poor decision and trusted the wrong person. It was discovered that he had purchased the illegal drug through Snapchat.

"The pill he had was a homemade counterfeit pill made to look like oxycodone, but in reality, it was fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine," Lisa Jimenez said. "It only takes 2 mg to kill someone."

She said people are being deceived into thinking it's just one pill and therefore could never kill them, but it can.

"We are an average family, in an average neighborhood, with good kids; this can happen to anyone," Jimenez said.

She said her other three children are helping to increase awareness about this worsening epidemic.

Wendy Hetherington, chief of epidemiology for public health and principal investigator for its Riverside Overdose Data to Action program, said program activities include improving data reporting and analysis of both fatal and non-fatal overdoses in Riverside County and then using that data to guide prevention activities.

"We have a public facing overdose dashboard and also produce monthly reports," she said.

Data can be accessed at https://countyofriverside.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=5e0ff2f698264ac6bd8795d6888e14a5.

Its "Overdose Deaths Age Groups and Drug Type" statistics, last updated March 11, showed that deaths from fentanyl are on the rise, from two deaths in 2016 to 80 deaths in 2020 for the 15-24 age group.

While the data provided by county public health is used for programming and training efforts, many parents said it is a misnomer to call their children's deaths "overdoses" when they died as a result of receiving counterfeit drugs. They said that classifying the deaths as overdoses makes it sound as if their children had some control over what they consumed.

Young people are being duped into thinking they are buying pills such as oxycodone or similar medications. While the parents said they are not accepting of their children using any illicit drugs, they said that bad decisions should not cost them their lives. The rates of fentanyl deaths are growing, and the parents said.it will take education and diligence on everyone's parts to help eradicate the problem.

Capelouto said most illicit fentanyl is made in China and makes its way to Mexico where it is brought across the border. He has learned much since he got involved with the Drug Induced Homicide group that was started in 2016 by Terry Almanza, whose daughter Sydney was killed by a drug dealer in 2015. Several months after Alexandra was killed, Capelouto helped Almanza turn the group into a national nonprofit organization.

"This is sad to say but don't believe your kids," Capelouto said. "I'm going to assume that most parents tried some form of drug at least once when growing up. Whether it was alcohol, marijuana or something else, I'm pretty confident they kept it from their parents. The same experimenting goes on today, except today's drugs are deadly. Illicit fentanyl has done what no other black-market drug has ever done: it kills with a single use. It is killing the casual drug user, the first-time drug user and those self-medicating. This group of non-addicts is now the fastest growing and least recognized demographic for drug-related deaths in the United States. Make sure your kids are aware of fentanyl, especially when it comes to pills. You can presume any pills purchased illegally are fake. The DEA has reported one in four of the black-market pills seized contain a lethal amount of fentanyl. Some say it's Russian roulette when it comes to taking pills but it's worse than that; it's not a matter of if it will kill, it's a matter of when."

John Hall, public information officer for the Communications Division of Riverside County district attorney's office, said the Riverside County Gang Impact Team, which is led by the office's Bureau of Investigation, seized numerous kilos of fentanyl in the past few weeks.

"Our office has filed second-degree murder charges in several cases involving fentanyl-related deaths," Hall said. "You can see news releases on those on our website (http://www.rivcoda.org) or Facebook page."

Capelouto spearheaded Senate Bill 350, also known as Alexandra's law, which would have made it easier to charge the person who sold the counterfeit pills to unwitting victims with manslaughter. The bill needed three out of five votes to pass out of the Senate Public Safety Committee, March 23, but only received one from Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-Yucaipa. While California legislators voted not to pass the bill out of committee, parents whose children have been poisoned from these drugs are continuing their fight and exploring all legislative options.

"The fight's not over, it's just beginning," Capelouto said. "When you've lost a child, you'll go to the ends of the earth, to hell and back to fight for them. I'll do that until the day I die."

Several parents from California are headed to Arizona, June 13, for Bereaved Parents Day. The city of Prescott has seen a steep increase in fentanyl deaths and members of the Drug Induced Homicide nonprofit want to help bring awareness to the issue. The group also hopes to bring greater national attention to the fentanyl epidemic with the Chinese Embassy rally in Washington, Aug. 27. More information is available at http://www.poisonedbychina.org.

While other fathers are helping their daughters navigate college, plan their wedding or welcome grandchildren, Capelouto is busy seeking justice for Alex's homicide.

"I don't really have any background that would have prepared me for this," he said. "I'm a small-business owner of a print shop in Temecula. Owning my business has allowed me to devote a fair amount of time to the cause, but it hasn't been without a financial toll. In conjunction with COVID-19, the last year has been challenging."

For more information, visit http://www.DrugInducedHomicide.org or http://Facebook.com/forgottenhomicidevictims.