Dilbert creator Scott Adams is mourning the loss of his 18-year-old stepson after he died of an apparent fentanyl overdose.
The 61-year-old cartoonist and creator of the satirical comic Dilbert revealed the news during a video on his Periscope Monday, recalling how he had received a call from his ex-wife over the weekend with the news that Justin, his stepson, had been found dead.
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“The little boy I raised from the age of two was dead,” Adams said in the video, holding back tears as he added that he had “to watch my dead, blue, bloated son taken out on a stretcher in front of his mother and biological father.”
Adams went on to explain that the 18-year-old died in his bedroom and coroners discovered a fentanyl patch on his stepson’s arm, leading to speculation that he had died of an overdose from the drug, which has also resulted in the deaths of Prince and Tom Petty.
The cartoonist also explained that it is believed Justin may have been trying to “score Xanax,” a sedative that can treat anxiety and panic disorder and is mostly counterfeit. According to Adams, the Xanax that addicts frequently get is actually “combinations of different drugs that is passed off as Xanax,” with a “prime ingredient” in the “fake” drug being fentanyl.
Adams also explained that his stepson had battled addiction for years, beginning after Justin suffered a serious head injury after being involved in an accident at 14-years-old. Despite trying to get him help, Adams claimed that Justin refused, and state laws prevented Adams from having Justin committed to a rehab facility.
“Fentanyl probably killed my son yesterday,” Adams said before going on to state how laws around Fentnayl and how it gets imported to the United States from China need to be stricter.
The dangerous drug, is “similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which states that Fentanyl is a “schedule II prescription drug.” The CDC also explains that the drug is commonly sold under the street names of “Apache, China Girl, China White, Dance Fever, Friend, Goodfella, Jackpot, Murder 8, TNT, and Tango and Cash.”
The NIDA’s website also explains that fentanyl “can cause breathing to stop completely, which can lead to death” and that “Fentanyl sold on the street can be mixed with heroin or cocaine, which markedly amplifies its potency and potential dangers.”
As previously stated, the drug has led to a number of deaths of high-profile names in Hollywood, including Prince, whose April 2016 death has been attributed to a fentanyl overdose. More recently, the drug led to the arrest of a houseguest at Cher’s Malibu home after he allegedly sold fentanyl to a user that died from an overdose.
