A life not fully lived: Federal bill aims to prevent more opioid overdose deaths
When she was a baby, Anastasia Shevtsova had a laugh that sounded like silver bells. More than a year after Anastasia died of an opioid overdose at the age of 15, her mother Olga Shevtsova still thinks of that laugh, her daughter’s singing voice, the way she painted a card decorated with tomatoes for her grandparents who love gardening. The way she painted flowers for her mother.
Looking at her daughter’s artwork brings comfort, but Olga said it’s also tremendously painful.
“It hasn’t gotten easier at all — and I don’t expect it to be or even want it to be easier,” Olga said. “I want to hold onto this grief, to this pain, to help other people understand how important it is to address the issue, how important it is to help young people and to save our children.“
Anastasia is one of about 1,000 Minnesotans that now die each year of opioid overdoses. It’s a nationwide issue, costing the country 645,000 lives between 1999 and 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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It’s an issue that policymakers and elected officials have struggled to contain. The crisis evolved from one grounded in overprescribing of medical opioids into one where a flood of synthetic black market opioids like fentanyl are now available with a few clicks on a screen. Olga, her 19-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son appeared at a press conference Tuesday organized by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt.
Klobuchar highlighted work she’s done trying to restrict access to the supply of opioids entering the United States, including a bill called STOP 2.0 Act that’s currently on the Senate floor. It would tighten shipping requirements and allow federal agencies to collaborate with other governments to better detect fentanyl in the mail.
“More Minnesotans die from opioid overdoses mostly due to fentanyl than from car crashes,” Klobuchar said. “These aren't just numbers. These are our daughters, our sisters, these are our moms and dads.”
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office was one of the first agencies in the region to outfit law enforcement officers with naloxone, the drug that can be given to people overdosing on opioids in order to restart their breathing. Witt said they’re also pushing for more public education about the drugs and dangers of buying pills that could be contaminated with synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Just last year, deputies administered Narcan 40 times to people overdosing. Already in 2023, they’ve administered the opioid antidote 37 times, according to the sheriff’s office. They’ve also seized 113,848 fentanyl pills so far this year.
Witt said collaboration between people in different fields will be necessary to bring the number of overdoses down.
“For years, there has been a gap between law enforcement, public health education and harm reduction programs,” Witt said. “Let me tell you people, public health and public safety go hand in hand, you can't have one without the other."
Klobuchar said more needs to be done to hold social media companies responsible when fentanyl or contaminated drugs are sold through their services.
Anastasia’s family said she lost her life after buying some pills on the social media app SnapChat. Olga remembers it as a normal April day in 2022. Anastasia asked her if she could go for a walk. Olga told her it was OK because it wasn’t late yet.
Olga didn’t know it at the time, but Anastasia had arranged to buy four small blue pills for $60. The seller, who is now facing criminal charges in Dakota County, gave her the pills in a Walgreens parking lot.
Anastasia went home and told her mother she was tired and wanted to head to bed early.
“At the entrance to her room, I gave her a hug and I told her, ‘I love you,’” Olga said. “She told me, ‘I love you, Mom,’ and she closed the door.”
Later that night, Olga noticed the light shining out from under her daughter’s door. She knocked, then opened the door. She found her cold on her bed, with her face turning blue. Olga remembers doing chest compressions on her daughter until paramedics arrived to bring her to the hospital.
“Me screaming, me on my knees to pray, trying to plead with God to bring my daughter back,” Olga said. “Well, she didn’t come back, and I had to say the hardest goodbye of my life.”
Anastasia’s family doesn’t think she’d bought opioids before. But she had struggled, especially after the pandemic cut her off from most in-person interactions.
Olga said they had failures and successes in treating Anastasia’s depression and anxiety, but that things were looking up. Anastasia was about to return to in-person schooling in the 9th grade and had a job at a shop that sold cookies. Olga is originally from Ukraine, although her children were born in the United States. Olga remembers feeling proud when Anastasia passionately protested the Russian invasion of the country alongside her.
“I was looking forward to her going to high school, going to college, and doing something important with her life,” Olga said. “It's not only my loss. It's a loss for this society that Anastasia's life wasn't fully lived.”