The “E” in DEA Does Not Stand for Education
A 1985 murder, a group of high school students, and the federal prevention team most of us have never called.
Sean Fearns answered my first question before I finished asking it. Why is a law enforcement agency in the prevention business at all? "The E in DEA does not stand for education," he said. "It stands for enforcement."
Then he told me a story I have not stopped thinking about. In February of 1985, DEA Special Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena left the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara to have lunch with his wife. He never made it.
That loss changed DEA. Leadership decided that going after supply was not enough, and that the agency had to do something about demand too.
The part I had never heard told this way is what happened next. High school students at Kiki's old school in Calexico, California, started forming Camarena Clubs and signing a pledge to grow up healthy and drug-free. Red Ribbon Week began with kids.
This episode is my conversation with Sean and Kevin Collins, who work on DEA's Community Outreach and Prevention Support team. Their job is getting free, science-based prevention material to parents, teachers, coalitions, and anybody else who asks.
We talk about Fentanyl Free America, what a counterfeit pill really is, and how drugs get sold through the phones kids carry. We also get into the part of prevention that does not expire when the drug of the moment changes. I am not going to give you the answers here, because Sean and Kevin tell it better than I can.
"We are not preventionists. We are supporting prevention." Sean Fearns
If you have ever built a coalition, you know the feeling of a missing chair. Law enforcement gets invited late or not at all, and when they do show up, nobody is sure what to ask of them. I have been in rooms where public health and law enforcement sat on opposite sides of the table, and I have sat on both sides.
What I did not expect was a federal agency saying out loud that it has not always followed good prevention science, and that fixing that is part of the job now. That kind of honesty is where a real partnership can start. The people who do this work are in field offices across the country, and part of their job is hearing from you.
Red Ribbon Week starts October 23. Before it does, give this episode a listen and pick one thing from it to do. Sean and Kevin make that part easy.
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Links & Resources:
Fentanyl Free America: dea.gov/fentanylfree
Operation Prevention: operationprevention.com
Get Smart About Drugs and the publications library: getsmartaboutdrugs.gov/resources
Just Think Twice: justthinktwice.gov
Campus Drug Prevention: campusdrugprevention.gov
Together for Families: dea.gov/togetherforfamilies
Faces of Fentanyl: dea.gov/facesoffentanyl
Red Ribbon Week: dea.gov/redribbon
FindTreatment.gov and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
