The faces of fentanyl victims are looking down on drivers traveling on Interstate 5 in California after an electronic billboard was erected to raise awareness of the epidemic stealing lives every day.
At least a dozen men and women who have died from fentanyl poisoning in the Sacramento area are shown on the board, which was fronted by the organization Drug Induced Homicide, according to a report.
Mothers of fentanyl victims paid for it, the report noted.
“We belong to a club no one wants to belong to,” Mareka Cole said. “We’re all fighting fentanyl; we’re fighting this scourge that’s taking our kids.”
Cole’s son, Marek, died due to fentanyl poisoning, and efforts such as this billboard honor his legacy through the support of other grieving families, she said.
“These laws have to change so that these fentanyl dealers are prosecuted. It’s murder,” Sharon Freeman, a mother who lost her son, Riley, said.
“They are not being murdered by fentanyl. They are being murdered by fentanyl dealers,” Sharon Freeman said.
The Sacramento-area billboard is not the first of its kind.
In 2023, a group of mothers in Alabama posted massive billboards to raise awareness and battle the fentanyl crisis that killed their daughters.
The mothers had partnered with Rachel’s Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the nation’s youth and their parents about the reality of drug use, to get the billboards in place.
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Cindy DeMaio started Rachel’s Angels after her 17-year-old daughter died due to fentanyl.
“I started Rachel’s Angels the day she passed away because I was just in complete shock that the Narcan didn’t work,” DeMaio said. “When the paramedics came here, she died in my arms. There was no reviving her.”
