Mother’s Fight Against Counterfeit Drugs After Daughter’s Fentanyl Death, Her Mother Wants To Justice

DEBARYLIFE – Kylie Gibson of NBC Montana spoke with a mother whose life has been permanently altered by a fatal counterfeit circumstance as the number of overdoses from illegal narcotics in the United States continues to soar. Only NBC Montana will air this story.

We frequently hear about the risks of fentanyl, how to avoid contact with it, and how dangerous it is, but we don’t typically hear about how these fatal overdoses impact families.

“One distributor in my small town caused the deaths of a long line of people, including my daughter.”

Ashely Romero is 32 years old, a wonderful mother, daughter, sister, grand daughter, and friend to many, according to Andrea Thomas.

Sadly, Ashley Romero passed away in 2018 after swallowing half of a fake medication that had a fatal amount of fentanyl present.

The day Ashley died, Thomas recalled sitting down with her husband at the kitchen table and feeling shocked that her daughter had died from a half-pill. “How is that even real?” Thomas asked.

Thomas chose to act on her grief because she realized she did not want another family to go through what she had after losing her daughter.

When a child is lost to these terrible narcotics, parents like Thomas become specialists in the field. Before 2018, Thomas knew very little about fentanyl.

With its headquarters located in Grand Junction, Colorado, Thomas founded the non-profit Voices for Awareness Foundation.

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The mission is to educate people about illicit fentanyl, which is present in the majority of today’s street narcotics, as well as counterfeit drugs, self-harm, and other related issues.

“I wonder how many other families there are that are unaware of fentanyl if even I am not? Thus, families like mine that raise awareness of the destruction that fentanyl causes to our families genuinely only want to save others,” Thomas stated.

The national fentanyl prevention and awareness day was also initiated by Thomas under the auspices of Project Facing Fentanyl. Supporters who want to spread the word about fentanyl include families and other nonprofit organizations.

Thomas resisted allowing her daughter’s life to be lost to history or reduced to a number.

Every single one of those figures represents a loved one, and a great number of additional people are impacted, therefore we must never forget that. There are consequences to this, and given the high numbers we are seeing right now, we want to make sure that people understand that these are our family members and that nothing we do can be undone,” Thomas stated.

As a result of his illegal distribution of deadly fentanyl tablets in Colorado, the guy who supplied Ashley, the daughter of Thomas, was given a life sentence.