A Delphos mother is standing up against the synthetic drugs that claimed the life of her son.
Diane Urban founded the Association for People Against Lethal Drugs, or APALD, in response to the death of her son due to Fentanyl poisoning two years ago. This pushed her to research the drug and she decided she needed to do something about it. The group held their first nationwide rally for change, with the Lima group joined by other local advocates on the steps of the Allen County courthouse. The goal was not only raising awareness in the public but the people who stop the drug from coming into the United States.
“Educate people and now politicians that will pay attention to this drug and do something about it,” says Urban. “Fentanyl should be considered a weapon of mass distraction because it kills people just like that. Cocaine is being laced with Fentanyl. Drug dealers have pill press machines now where they can put Fentanyl in pills and make it look like just a regular Oxycontin, Xanax. So, like yea, it is being put in everything, and you really got to be careful because people are dying.”
In 2020, the United States lost over 81,000 people to the opioid epidemic, 80% of that number was because of synthetic opioids.
