Tami Gottsegen doesn�t come to Boulder anymore. The 45-minute, northwest drive from Centennial is too painful: it is where her son, Braden Burks, 24, attended the University of Colorado. It was a place of hope and promise for Tami until her son�s life was taken from him by a counterfeit pill.
Braden was a true Colorado native: a strongly devoted Broncos fan, glued to his television on Sundays, an avid skier, namely at Breckenridge, Keystone and Winter Park, and in-state college student who studied at Leeds School of Business.
�Living in Winter Park as a child, he learned how to ski when he was still in diapers,� Gottsegen said. �As soon as he could walk, he was skiing.��He grew up in a tight-knit, blended family and was one of six siblings. His stepsister, Tori Bridges, describes her bond with Braden as twin-like. Bridges describes her brother as popular and well-respected by peers, a magnetic personality that acted as a glue in his many friendships.
When Braden moved to Denver in 2017, he was beginning a new chapter in his life.�
On Jan. 10, 2019, Braden had two friends over to watch a NCAA men’s basketball game. Watching sports and participating in them connected Braden and his friends in shared interests and passions. But after Braden�s friends left, his night was different than most � he decided to buy a pill from a high school acquaintance.�
�He grew up in a tight-knit, blended family and was one of six siblings. His stepsister, Tori Bridges, describes her bond with Braden as twin-like. Bridges describes her brother as popular and well-respected by peers, a magnetic personality that acted as a glue in his many friendships.
When Braden moved to Denver in 2017, he was beginning a new chapter in his life.�
On Jan. 10, 2019, Braden had two friends over to watch a NCAA men’s basketball game. Watching sports and participating in them connected Braden and his friends in shared interests and passions. But after Braden�s friends left, his night was different than most � he decided to buy a pill from a high school acquaintance.�
Fentanyl is now disguised in street substances, such as powders, capsules and pressed pills. It is Colorado�s leading cause of drug deaths.�
According to Kirk Bol, the manager of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment�s Vital Statistics Program, at least 912 drug deaths in Colorado in 2021 involved fentanyl. Drug poisonings by fentanyl have increased over 2,000% since 2015, when only 41 Coloradans died of the substance.�
Such poisoning occurs when a person intends to take an ill-gotten drug, as Braden did, but is sold fentanyl under the guise of the requested drug, also known as a counterfeit pill.Defining Fentanyl
Fentanyl is a Schedule II narcotic, a synthetic opioid first used medically in the 1960s, typically used to treat patients with severe pain, particularly cancer patients. It is also used to treat patients with chronic pain who are not physically tolerant to other opioids because it is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. In recent years, it has become a dominant painkiller for doctors, but also a scourge in communities as black-market cooks realize easy profits can be made because a small amount goes a long way.Buyers often assume they are purchasing a generic pharmaceutical pill, but the reality is, the pill is unregulated. Counterfeit pills are made to look reliable like prescription opioids such as oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin), and alprazolam (Xanax); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall). Fake pills are easily accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms.
For American youth, especially young adults on college campuses, the culture of drugs and accessibility to experiment or self-medicate is prevalent.
In conjunction with social pressures and the COVID-19 lockdown leading to intense periods of isolation, data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicates there have been large increases in many kinds of drug use in the United States since the national emergency was declared in March 2020.�Fentanyl has nothing to do with being a drug addict,� Wil Lemon, Braden�s childhood best friend, said. �This has nothing to do with being so dependent on a pill that you must take too much of it, to the point you die. That is what you call overdose. This is totally different. Braden wasn�t addicted to pills. He wasn�t dependent mentally, physically, on anything. He one night trusted someone and decided to take a pill and it killed him.�
Though fentanyl is often abused by those struggling with addiction, this narcotic has also seeped into distribution chains for first-time and recreational users, who are unable to survive its potency. Only two milligrams of fentanyl � roughly the size of Abraham Lincoln�s ear on the penny � can be lethal.