‘I just couldn’t stop,’ 22-year-old says
This is the new young face of fentanyl addiction before and after 22 year-old katie mather forehead and chin clawed opened by her own fingernails because the use of fentanyl makes her skin crawl i spot her on the strip suri’s infamous drug hangout and ask if she’ll talk to me she puts cover-up on her raw skin say i literally just did my mascara and i’m good to
Go katie settles in to tell her story how she ended up living on the street 3 months ago addicted to fentanyl well i’ve been using it’s actually funny well not funny he’s terrible i’m a really addictive personality i’ve always been like addicted to something whether it was shopping or or facebook or whatever and i did an oxy i got addicted right away and then
I got i finally like i found a regular dealer and i started picking up all the time i remember the day the fence and all came out and my dealer said you know i’ve got these new bills they’re fake oxys he didn’t tell me they were fentanyl because nobody knew what fentanyl was yet he just said there are a hundred times stronger and there are only five dollars more
And i was just like okay because i you know i was getting a pretty high tolerance at this point oxys oxycontin bled to fake 80s fentanyl posing as oxycontin immediately katie wanted nothing else i could buy one of these fake 80s put them into four lines and two lines would last me a full day that’s so strong it was and if i did a full pill i would eat katie says
She’s overdosed 11 times most recently a few days ago brought back by paramedics or friends on the strip who have naloxone the powerful opioid antidote every time i do dope i know i’m taking a risk i know i might die but like it doesn’t matter how many times i roadied i still use the next day because the withdrawals are so bad katie has been in the news before she
And her sister attacked by a rottweiler cross back in december katie was badly hurt and spent time in hospital she says that cemented her addiction to fentanyl as she talks blood starts to seep through her makeup katie r22 why would you risk this well at first it was just fun right it’s just for fun i was just a party drunk that you know like and there’s been some
Things that i’ve gone through and helped with a lot of pain and especially after you know that dog attack i i just couldn’t stop you know i asked katie if she worries about herself and her future sometimes i mean ah i don’t know i’m just like to take things one day at a time i you know kind of just go with it and hopefully you know hope for the best for now the
Best katie can hope for is to wake up from her next fix of fentanyl eric rankin cbc news surrey
Transcribed from video
The new face of fentanyl addiction: Kati's story By CBC News
