GOOCHLAND COUNTY, Va. — First Lady Suzanne Youngkin hosted a forum Friday morning discussing the impact of fentanyl on the Commonwealth.
The first lady kicked the forum off with a one-on-one conversation with Jill Chicowicz, founder of the nonprofit 2 End the Stigma.
The activist said she had to experience the disease of addiction through her twin brother Scott Zebrowski seven years ago.
"He suffered a back injury on the job, and he was put on oxycodone through workers' compensation," Chicowicz said. “I just kept remembering him saying, ‘I feel so alive, I feel alive.'"
Chicowicz said her brother was one of the countless victims of the opioid crisis when his addiction eventually spiraled to fentanyl.
“He dropped to one knee, and he was out there for 20 minutes, and nobody helped him," Chicowicz said. “He died of fentanyl overdose Feb. 28, 2017.”
Through her organization, Chicowicz created the Scott Zebrowski Scholarship Fund in partnership with the Richmond-based treatment center The McShin Foundation, with the mission of alleviating barriers to help for those suffering from addiction.
Cichowicz was invited to speak by the first lady because her nonprofit's goal goes hand in hand with the efforts of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's Operation FREE (Fentanyl Reduction Enforcement and Eradication) Virginia.
"That is why I got so deeply involved. We all know that, on average, five Virginians are dying a day," Youngkin said.
Operation FREE Virginia was launched in May 2023 as part of Executive Order 26 signed by the governor to defeat the fentanyl crisis in the state. Other states have launched similar initiatives.
Operation FREE Virginia brings with it a slew of other initiatives campaigns like One Pill Can Kill, Right Help, Right Now and It Only Takes One, the latter of which went into phase two in August with $1 million in funding behind it by the General Assembly through 2026. It aims to expand fentanyl awareness efforts through digital campaigns targeted to classrooms, programs, and impacted communities across the state.
"We are doing this work so that not a single Virginian, or American, or non-American has to face the trauma of losing someone they love or their life inadvertently to a deadly poison," Youngkin said.
During the presentation, a hazmat specialist with the Virginia Department of Corrections illustrated the dangers of fentanyl with a synthetic powder that mimics the look of the powder used to form the pills.
With the aid of a black light, a specialist demonstrated how easily the drug can be unknowingly passed through the air or physical touch when it is being manufactured.
According to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, fentanyl is approximately fifty times more potent than heroin and one hundred times stronger than morphine. VDEM said fentanyl overdose deaths in the Commonwealth have grown over 20-fold since 2013, with 1,951 Virginians killed by fentanyl in 2022.
"We talked to people in libraries, health clinics, we did revive training, and we leveraged as many community resources as we could to make sure people knew that it only takes one," Youngkin said.
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