While cramming for finals, one Western Massachusetts teenager offered her classmate Adderall — a pill she got from a mutual connection on social media. She said she trusted him.
“This really helps,” the teen told her friend. “Trust me.”
But the pill wasn’t Adderall. It was a fake pill laced with fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid. And she was later found unconscious.
Luckily, the scenario was a video created by Hampden District Attorney Youth Advisory Board. It’s called “You Can’t Study if you Don’t Wake Up.”
But it’s a real issue facing teens — and adults — today.
In 2021, 19-year-old Clifton Dubois died of an overdose in Rhode Island, NPR reported. He had bought counterfeit Adderall the night before, according to the police report. It was laced with fentanyl.
“He thought by staying away from the street drugs … and just taking pills, like, he was doing better,’’ Jennifer Dubois, his mother, told NPR. “I do truly believe Cliff thought he was taking something safe.”
Two Ohio State University students died after taking counterfeit Adderall in 2022, The New York Times reported. And two men in Massachusetts were charged after officials said they used a pill press to manufacture counterfeit pills, including counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl, counterfeit Adderall pills containing methamphetamine and counterfeit Xanax pills containing clonazolam.
Read more: ‘They give me a lot of hope’: High schoolers honored as ‘valuable resource’ for DA
In 2024, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 60 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 8,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The 2024 seizures are equivalent to more than 380 million lethal doses of fentanyl. The 2025 fentanyl seizures represent over 119 million deadly doses.
The DEA considers 2 mg of fentanyl a potentially deadly dose.
“There’s so much happening for our young people and around our young people that I think is different than it was even 10 years ago, and 20 and 30 years ago, when we grew up as parents or community leaders,” said Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni. “Counterfeit pills and the use of things like Adderall, the misuse, are huge problems that really can be catastrophic.”
Jaelle Dyer and Joi-Lee Key-Washington were two students part of the Hampden District Attorney Youth Advisory Board. They both go to Springfield Central High school.Heather Morrison
But teens are working with Gulluni and his office to make a difference in Western Massachusetts.
Over the past school year, 55 students from 24 schools were part of this year’s Youth Advisory Board.
The students, grades 10-12, were split up into seven teams for different topics, including substance use, social media, mental health and healthy relationships. The students create projects on their topics, including cook books, murals and videos.
The students presented their projects at an annual conference on Thursday and provided their recommendations to representatives from school, law enforcement and community groups.
“For us to know about [issues teens are facing], impart it, not only here today, but throughout the year to school systems, to school administrators, to teachers, to police officers so they can address it as well in their communities, is enormously helpful,” Gulluni told MassLive after the conference on Thursday.
And while they’re heavy topics, Adderall use and vaping are something the students are seeing daily at their schools, multiple students told MassLive.
“ Every year, honestly, more substances are being used,“ said Jaelle Dyer, 17, a senior at Springfield Central High School. ”Stuff that may not have been common before are becoming more common. [Percocet], Adderall, that’s all stuff that people are now using.”
The No. 1 place students are seeing their peers use substances, such as vaping, are at school — classrooms, bathrooms and hallways, Joi-Lee Key-Washington, 17, a senior at Springfield Central High School, told audience members Thursday. This came from polling 191 of her peers. The second was social media and the third was at parties.
“That’s what our youth are being exposed to every single day,” she told the crowd.
Another student, Rachel Roblinski from Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School in Palmer, echoed her concerns.
“Every day. Every single day I’m at school, I see something,” she told MassLive. “See someone with a vape, see somebody buying one.”
And her peers are frustrated because it is affecting their learning environment.
Rachel Roblinski from Pathfinder Tech was part of the Youth Advisory Board.Heather Morrison
Nearly half of the students Key-Washington spoke with said schools aren’t doing enough to educate students on peer pressure and substance use.
“That tells us something is missing,” she told the crowd.
She told the crowd this issue “demands our attention, action and understanding.”
The group also created a nearly 40-page document to help parents understand some of these issues with substance abuse.
“I think parents don’t know where [vapes] are hidden, how they are used, how they smell, and in what forms they are in because they are in various forms,“ Key-Washington told MassLive. ”So, in our guide we broke down how they look, how they work, where people hide them, just to create awareness and education and emphasize support and education.”
The students worry the adults in their lives and community leaders have no idea how serious things have become.
“I don’t think we know drastically how bad it’s gotten. I don’t think we realize that when people are taking substances, how fast it can affect somebody’s mind and how much substances that people are starting to take,” Roblinski said.
More than 50 Western Massachusetts high school students have spent countless hours tackling serious issues, including vaping, sexual assault and bullying, with the district attorney’s office.Heather Morrison
When schools try to address the issue, the teens said the response is often punishment — not support. But that approach isn’t working.
“ They just get them in trouble, suspend them and bring them back,“ Key-Washington said. ”They don’t educate them on what they are actually experiencing, what they’re actually doing and what they’re actually hooked and helpless on.”
Instead, the schools need to focus on better education, she suggested.
“Especially going more into detail on why it’s bad,” Dyer said. “They just say it’s looked down upon, but it’s not emphasized why. And I feel like that’s why so many students are using it because they don’t really know the stuff that happens to you when you are using the products.”
And all the teens in the program want to continue to be part of the solution — and a source of support. There are people, like Dyer and Key-Washington, that care and can help.
“You don’t have to run to substances to feel the need to relieve any pain, anything that you have going on,” Dyer said.
For all the projects, click here.
