Documentary on fentanyl features Central Texas parents who lost children to overdoses

The trailer for a new documentary about the dangers of fentanyl includes video of two paramedics saving 19-year-old Leander resident Tucker Roe from his first overdose of the drug in March 2021. Tucker has an oxygen mask over his face and his mother, Stefanie Turner, is holding his hand in the clip. "C'mon Tuck," she says. "Momma needs you, baby."

She later explains in the trailer that she videotaped the scene so Tucker could see "how awful and scary it was." The documentary, called "F.U.: Fentanyl Unlimited," is being screened Oct. 17-24 at the Flix Brewhouse, 2200 Interstate 35 South in Round Rock, said the director, Charlie Minn. It also will be shown Oct. 18 in other places across the country, including New York City.

The film, based in Texas, includes interviews with families whose teenage children have died from fentanyl overdoses and interviews with investigators, sheriffs and medics, Minn said during an interview last week.

Fact-check: Is fentanyl the leading cause of death among American adults?

Minn, who is based in Manhattan, said he became interested in raising awareness about the dangers of fentanyl after making 11 films inside "the Mexican war zone."

"Studying drug cartels is something I've been doing for a very long time," Minn said. Most of the illegal fentanyl is being smuggled into Texas and the rest of the United States by Mexican cartels, he said.

In the trailer for his film, there is a clip of President Joe Biden saying 70,000 Americans die a year from fentanyl overdoses. Minn said one out of every four Texans has overdosed on an opioid or knows someone who has, a statistic that has been confirmed by the Texas Workforce Commission.

"That's alarming and disgusting," Minn said. "Fentanyl is a poison. Fentanyl is murder."

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is sometimes prescribed legally for pain management, but it can be fatal when used illegally because even small amounts can kill a person.

It is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. One illegal counterfeit pill can contain a deadly amount of fentanyl, officials have said.

Counterfeit pills marketed as opioids but laced with fentanyl have been contributing to recent overdose deaths across the Central Texas area and the country. National drug experts have said fentanyl is often used in pills because it is highly addictive and cheap.

At least six students in the Hays County school district have died from fentanyl-related overdoses at home since July 2022. The Hays County sheriff's office also is investigating the death of a 15-year-old student at his home as a suspected fentanyl poisoning, said district spokesman Tim Savoy. School officials also had to administer the anti-overdose drug Narcan seven times last year on campus to reverse student overdoses and three times this year, he said.

Minn said that cartels in Mexico control the border, and that trafficking in fentanyl is a billion-dollar operation.

"Americans have to wake up to the tragedy. I would say more than half don't even know they are taking it because it's being laced into pills," he said.

Stefanie Turner said her son thought he was taking a Xanax to help with pain from a broken hand when she videotaped his first overdose in March 2021. The pill that he bought from a friend turned out to be laced with fentanyl, she said.

She started crying as she said that she knew that including the video in the film of him being saved from an overdose was "absolutely showing Tucker at his worst point." She said she did it to try to save other children's lives.

Tucker went to a treatment program after his first overdose and helped other teens with their addictions, his mother said. He had graduated from Leander High School, was working at his father's construction company and was planning to run a triathlon when he purchased another pill on Instagram that was sold as Percocet, she said. He had been stressed out trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, his mother said.

More: Leander teen's death leads to bill that would require fentanyl education in Texas schools

The pill turned out to be laced with illegal fentanyl, she said. It killed Tucker Roe on Sept. 23, 2021.

"The perception that children have is 'it won’t happen to me,'" Stefanie Tucker said. "I think Tucker thought that, too. I don’t think he thought he was going to die from taking that pill."

Stefanie Tucker started a nonprofit called Texas Against Fentanyl after her son's death. The group includes about 90 mothers in the Central Texas area who have lost their children to fentanyl overdoses. Texas Against Fentanyl helped get a bill called "Tucker's Law" passed this year that requires 10 hours of education annually about the dangers of fentanyl and drug poisoning for students in the sixth grade through high school in Texas public schools.

The group has used its funds to develop a curriculum to educate middle school students about the dangers of fentanyl, but it still needs to raise money to develop education material specific to high school students, said Joanne Crownover, who also is featured in the documentary.

Her 18-year-old daughter, Savannah Renee Crownover, who attended Lake Travis High School, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2021.

Crownover said in an interview that her daughter had been accepted to the University of Texas, where she was planning to pursue a degree in writing and communication.

"She wrote such a compelling essay about her struggle with anxiety that they accepted her," said her mother.

Savannah Crownover went to therapy and was doing well until she had a bad day on March 21, 2021, her mother said. Joanne Crownover said she and her husband hung out with their daughter that day for an hour. When they left, she was laughing, her mother said.

But Savannah bought what she thought was a Xanax on her way home from work to help her sleep, her mother said. She hugged her parents when she got home and then went to her room. The pill turned out to be laced with a deadly amount of fentanyl, Joanne Crownover said.

"My husband found her in the morning, and it was devastating," said Crownover. "The police said she was probably dead within a minute from taking the pill."

She died one week before her high school graduation, her mother said.

The fentanyl documentary also has interviews with families from other parts of Texas, including a Brownsville family whose son died after buying fentanyl that turned out to be deadly from a pharmacy in Mexico, Minn said.

He said he hopes his film motivates people to take action by posting their concerns about fentanyl on social media.

"I wish people would post more about that than what Kylie Jenner is doing," he said "It's all fun and entertaining, but I think there should be more focus on fentanyl."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Fentanyl documentary includes Central Texas parents who lost children