Health Department campaign warns against fentanyl-laced cocaine
Sept. 9, 2019
NEW YORK — On the glittery gold walls of the ungendered bathrooms in House of Yes, a Bushwick nightclub known for its eccentric circus parties, hang loud red and yellow posters. “USING COCAINE TONIGHT?” they read in bold black lettering.
These posters, along with matching coasters for bars, began appearing in nightlife venues across North Brooklyn in June as part of an awareness campaign launched by the New York City Department of Health and Hygiene that aims to educate recreational cocaine users about rising overdoses from drugs laced with the lethal synthetic opioid fentanyl.
This campaign was prompted by mounting worry from city officials about the swelling trend of fentanyl-linked deaths. The Health Department reported that traces of the powerful synthetic drug have been increasingly detected in cocaine, resulting in a significant jump in cocaine overdose deaths since 2016. In New York City, 53% of all cocaine overdose deaths in 2017 also contained fentanyl, according to a report published in April by Denise Paone, senior director of research and surveillance at the New York City Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention.
Beginning on June 27, the North Brooklyn awareness campaign followed a 2018 trial run in the Lower East Side, which also targeted popular bars and nightclubs in order to reach casual cocaine users who frequent New York nightlife. As an eminent venue in the area and well known across the city, House of Yes served as the 2019 campaign epicenter.
A security guard at House of Yes, Bruce Rivera emphasized that the campaign reflects the judgement free attitude the nightclub has toward its customers. Rather than attack recreational drug users’ habits, the campaign purely looks to offer information.
“The nature of House of Yes is to be open to all lifestyles, and if addiction is one of them, then so be it,” Rivera said. “We don’t want to discriminate against or judge any of our patrons.”
As part of the campaign, the Health Department offered staff trainings on how to recognize an opioid overdose and administer naloxone, a medicine that almost immediately counters the effects of opioid overdoses. At the end of each session, they gave out kits that included NARCAN, a brand of naloxone in the form of a nasal spray.
Robinson Diaz, a bartender at the Whiskey Ward in the Lower East Side, participated in one of the staff trainings last year. Along with his colleagues, he walked away from the session with a black and red card of certification that he signed and still keeps in his wallet.
However, the most memorable moment of the 2018 campaign for him happened when a 25-year-old named Emily Fayssoux passed out on a couch in the back of neighboring bar No Fun. Later, it came out that the Brooklyn resident had died in the hospital that night as the result of a fentanyl-laced cocaine overdose, which rattled nightlife venues in the area, Diaz recalled.
Fayssoux’s death occurred on May 26, three days into the Health Department’s rounds of Lower East Side bars and nightclubs. Even if staff at No Fun had participated in the campaign’s naloxone trainings prior to the incident, it is uncertain that it would have made a difference.
An emergency medical technician working in nightlife, Danny Hertz thinks the Health Department’s fentanyl campaign sessions are overall beneficial for medically untrained nightlife workers, but he also finds that they were more for giving employees feelings of confidence than any real preparedness.
“It would be difficult for someone who took a short training to discern an opioid overdose,” Hertz said. “The good thing is, NARCAN is basically harmless and wouldn’t complicate anything.”
While he has never encountered an opioid-related emergency at the various nightclubs and music festivals he works, Hertz acknowledges the very real possibility that fentanyl could end up laced in cocaine or other party drugs and have fatal results.
Nonetheless, by partnering with the Department of Health and maintaining fentanyl awareness even after the campaigns officially end, participating nightlife venues hope to keep their patrons safe and informed in the long term. Jose Arturo, a security guard at House of Yes, has hopeful outlooks on the role of nightlife employees in preventing future drug overdoses.
“You shouldn’t be discriminated against for having a habit,” Arturo said. “People are more likely to go to family or friends about drug-related problems than a hospital or clinic — we want to be that friend.”
