WASHINGTON — Five days after discovering their 16-year-old son Daniel Puerta unresponsive in bed, Jaime Puerta and his wife decided to discontinue life support as they stood beside him in the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. Puerta kissed his son’s nose one last time.
Daniel, who had no history of drug use, is one of countless stories tragically connected to the nation’s opioid crisis. Over the past decade, synthetic opioids have claimed over 450,000 American lives, and left millions more struggling with addiction.
Five years after his son’s death, Puerta recounted the tragedy before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, explaining that his son took half a counterfeit pill that was, unbeknownst to him, laced with illegally manufactured fentanyl.
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