The U.S. Department of Justice says a Minnesota man pleaded guilty this week to distributing Fentanyl that resulted in the death of an Alabama man. Prosecutors say Christopher Bass used the U.S. Postal Service to mail the drugs to Dr. Louis Burgio of Tuscaloosa in 2022, and that the Fentanyl was counterfeit Oxycontin. Burgio was later found dead.
A DOJ release says…
Bass pleaded guilty to distributing Fentanyl, admitting that a person’s death resulted from his actions. The plea agreement says the defendant used the United States Postal Service to distribute narcotics, namely counterfeit Oxycontin, throughout the United States. Bass received orders over the internet for counterfeit pills and then concealed shipments of pills within U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail packages. The packaging found in Dr. Burgio’s home matched the packages shipped by Bass.
Lawmen searched Bass’s Minnesota home and seized counterfeit pills, Fentanyl, and packaging material. A search of Bass’s phone revealed spreadsheets of customers, addresses, U.S. Postal Service tracking numbers, weights and quantities of orders, and pricing for pills. Bass is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler at the Federal Courthouse in Tuscaloosa in December. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case.
APR Gulf coast correspondent Lynn Oldshue reported on a one man effort to educate school students on the dangers of Fentanyl and other drugs. The group Operation Save Teens says another step in addressing the Fentanyl drug crisis is educating parents and children. The synthetic opioid is getting stronger and easier to get.
“It's like you get tired of hearing it, so you just tune it out,” said Lieutenant Mike Reese is with Operation Save Teens. He’s traveled Alabama for more than twenty years giving presentations in gyms, classrooms, and churches. Reese was an undercover Narcotics agent. He realized people were dying from OxyContin. He gave a city-wide meeting in Anniston about the new drug trends that later grew into the program that has educated hundreds of thousands of teenagers and parents across Alabama. But the drugs he warns about are also growing.
“I'm going into my 40th year in law enforcement, and I've never seen anything like the situation in this country right now with Fentanyl,” said Reese.
Reese’s warnings go beyond opioids. He also begs teens not to buy marijuana based C-B-D products in gas stations.
“If tomorrow they call me up and say, you can do one thing today that would make a tremendous difference in Alabama, the first thing that I would do is get every single bit of the Delta eight, delta nine THC products out of the convenience stores, all of it,” Reese contended.
THC is the chemical in marijuana that makes you high. Reese adds another substance to the crisis.
“Right now, the number one problem in schools, according to administrators across the state, is vaping,” said Reese. “These kids are vaping, and they're buying the pods off the street. When the death toll starts piling up, that's when everybody gets interested.”
“There's lots of vaping in schools,” said That is Ashleigh Simon, a clinical director with The Bridge, Inc., an adolescent drug and rehabilitation center covering 30 counties in Alabama.
“There's challenges such as vape in school, hashtag vape school that kids will vape in the classroom and post it. The teacher never even knows,” said Simon.
She says almost all kids who enter services with the Bridge are vaping. Some are vaping TCH extracts from marijuana. It’s called dabbing.
“Dabbing is one of the things that we are most concerned about because it is so concentrated and easy to conceal. The kids become very addicted and get dangerously ill at times. Dabbing is concerning because it is much more concentrated than typical marijuana. It’s up to 15% more concentrated than just smoking marijuana.
Simon says using substances during adolescence and teenage years can cause permanent damage to coordination, learning, memory and problem-solving.
“My recommendation to parents is to talk soon and early,” said Simon. “If they don't know anything about it and they're hearing words such as vaping or dabbing, then research it. There's a wealth of information out there.”
The biggest problems were teenage drinking and marijuana when Simon started working at the addiction treatment center called The Bridge 20 years ago. The program still serves 12 to 18-year-olds, but the age of first use is getting younger, sometimes seven or eight years old.
You can listen to Lynn’s story again by clicking below.
Editor's Note: APR's copy originally referred to the victim as Louis Bass, instead of Burgio. APR regrets the error.
