This is Red Ribbon Week, the nation’s oldest and largest drug misuse prevention awareness program – which actually runs 10 days.
It began following the 1985 kidnap-torture murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena by drug traffickers he was investigating in Mexico.
People began wearing red ribbons to honor his sacrifice and today millions of people celebrate Red Ribbon Week by wearing red ribbons, participating in community anti-drug events, and pledging to live drug-free lives.
The DEA’s Omaha Division is marking Red Ribbon Week by lighting 10 landmarks in Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota in red.
Two are in Nebraska – the huge fountain in the Fountain Ridge business park in west Omaha and the Bob Kerry footbridge over the Missouri River between Omaha and Council Bluffs
The DEA Omaha Division is also teaming with community partners to raise awareness to the consequences of drug experimentation, misuse and abuse.
Special-Agent-in-Charge Justin King says education plays a key role in raising awareness to the lethal consequences of fentanyl and that “we need to be constantly talking with our youth about the dangers of this drug and others.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug poisonings and overdoses
are a leading cause of death for Americans age 18-45.
The CDC estimates that more than 110,000 people in the U-S lost their lives that way last year with nearly 70% of them attributed to synthetic opioids including fentanyl.
Lab testing indicates that 7 out of 10 fake pills seized by the DEA contain a lethal dose of fentanyl. The DEA has seized more than 62 million fentanyl pills so far this year, 4-million more than in all of last year.