Fighting fentanyl: Families and feds fight flood of $1-per-pill opioid killing loved ones

When Sara Lowry thinks about her son Aiden, she doesn’t think about the addiction he fought but about the boy whose goals of fancy jobs, fancy cars and one day life as a successful businessman in London were all lost to the powerfully addictive drug.

“I can see the addiction,” she told the News4 I-Team, “but I know that that wasn't him. I don't think that there's been a day that has gone by that one of us hasn't said his name.”

As communities across the D.C. area continue to fight fentanyl, the I-Team asked the Lowry family to share Aiden’s story as we examined why the opioid still has such a powerful pull on users.

It’s not an easy conversation for Lowry – the details of her son’s journey are brutal to remember. But she does it, tells her family’s story as often as she can, pushing for more treatment, more harm reduction, more prevention efforts at schools. She thinks people need to hear about the true costs of fentanyl.

“It was just too strong,” she said. “It was just too powerful.”

Aiden was addicted to fentanyl before he ever knew he was using it, Lowry said.

A straight-A student before COVID-19 hit, Aiden withdrew during the lockdown. Isolation led to anxiety, his mother explained. Anxiety led to depression.

Lowry says a new friend introduced Aiden to a THC-vape. She had no idea the kid who normally shared everything was now using.

“It's just … it's actually completely crazy to think that it was happening right under my nose, like, in my home,” she said. “But he was exceptionally good at hiding it.”

At some point, Aiden tried what he thought was Percocet, a tiny opioid pill, his mother said.

Concerned by what they thought were symptoms of a mental health issue – fatigue and withdrawing from family — Lowry and her husband sent Aiden to therapists and a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist suggested a drug screen, and when it came back positive for fentanyl, Lowry said Aiden was as surprised as she was.

It’s not a surprise to experts tracking the fentanyl crisis. At the Drug Enforcement Administration lab in Largo, Maryland analysts are examining thousands of pills a week testing for fentanyl. There is so much of the drug in our area, we’re told that every analyst must test Fentanyl every day. 

DEA supervisory chemist Jaclyn Brown called the pace of fentanyl work, “grueling, daunting,” and said it’s been this was for at least a year.

Just as frightening as the amount of fentanyl is its appearance. On the day the I-Team was in the lab, Brown showed bag after bag of tiny pills. Many of them were stamped with the identical markings as a legitimate oxycodone pill – down to the manufacturer and dosage markings.

“Six in 10 pills have a lethal dosage in them,” Brown explained. “All you really need is one. One pill can kill."

At the same time Aiden was fighting his addiction, the I-Team found a case involving a now-convicted fentanyl dealer in the same community.

Federal court records show Alpha Kamara was moving thousands of fentanyl-laden pills from his base in Prince William County in 2022. No users or victims are identified in the Kamara case, and police have not yet arrested anyone tied to Aiden Lowry’s death. But the massive amount of pills Kamara was able to transport for as little as $1 per pill shows just how much of the drug is out there.

Jessica Aber, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, told the I-Team about the case against Alpha Kamara.

“He was selling 10,000 pills in Lorton, Virginia, in exchange for $10,000,” she said. “Two days later, he is being chased by the Virginia State Police on I-95. He is doing 140 miles an hour in a stolen car. He's finally taken into custody. He slips off the first set of handcuffs. They put him back in cuffs. The police search the vehicle and find 18,000 counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, about $13,000 in cash and a loaded firearm.”

If one pill can make an addict — and one pill can be fatal — think of how many lives and families 18,000 pills can affect.

According to the court record, Kamara was convicted of a gun and drug charge in 2018. As he ended his sentence, he was put on home confinement. Just days after that home confinement ended, Kamara had suppliers in Arizona and Washington shipping him thousands of pills through the U.S. mail, court records show.

Aber told the I-Team she believes they were likely sourced from Mexican cartels.

All of it in the custody of a 24-year-old previously convicted of a felony and just three days off home confinement.

Aber called it “amazing,” “horrifying” and just one case against one dealer. As Kamara was sentenced, Aber said that he showed no remorse, but that maybe some would develop during his 11-year sentence.

“I don't think that anyone sets out in life to be a drug dealer and to kill your users,” he said. “That just cannot be how Americans operate. So, I can't speak to him specifically, but I'd like to think that people, when they have some time and distance to reflect on these kinds of activities, do feel some remorse.”

Aber calls fentanyl “one of the greatest public safety crises of our time” and reminded the I-Team 109,000 Americans died of opioids last year alone.

Aiden Lowry was one of them.

Last spring, Aiden went to rehab in California.

“He was thankful that he had gone and he felt much better,” his mother told the I-Team. “He felt renewed. But I think that there was also this like, ‘I can't promise, you know, I can't promise sobriety … I don't know how I'm going to do this. This is so hard.’”

Aiden continued treatment at home in outpatient programs, his mom said. She thinks he was clean for six weeks until early fall last year.

Aiden’s family worked hard to find a doctor who would treat him with Suboxone, a medication to treat opioid dependence. Lowry said despite many calls, they could not find any who would give it to adolescents. Aiden was 17.

“We were just, it was like turned down at every angle,” she said.

Aiden eventually started using again.

“He told us that he had made a big mistake. He said, ‘I just, I've ruined my life.’ He was just desperate for a change, but he felt like it was an impossible task … It was completely devastating,” Lowry said.

He agreed to a second trip to rehab last November. A day after he arrived, he ran away from the center and was sent home, Lowry said.

"He really struggled with (his drug use) because he really wanted to be a good person," she said.

As Thanksgiving passed last year and Christmas approached, the pull of the pill Aiden never wanted to take was just too hard.

"It's just so easy to get," his mother told the I-Team.

As his struggle intensified, Lowry believes Aiden sought fentanyl for its cheap and intense high.

On a Saturday morning in December, she found her son in his bedroom.

"I went into his bedroom,” she said. “I saw him there with his eyes closed and I called his name, and he didn’t answer. And I started calling louder, and he didn't do anything. He wasn't moving. And I knew then."

They tried Narcan, but it was too late.

Aiden, her 17-year-old son who had big dreams, was gone.

"I'm angry at addiction and I'm angry at the creators of this pill,” she said. “And I honestly think that he was somewhat innocent in this like that. He did not ask for this and certainly didn't understand what he was getting himself into."

Aiden is buried beneath a stone bearing words he wrote himself. His mother says Aiden was a poet and as he fought his addiction, he wrote that he “had the devil on one shoulder, but God on both sides.” His family’s pastor read the line at his memorial service just days before Christmas last year.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, these are some helpful resources:

• Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources
• Before It’s Too Late — Maryland
• LIVE. LONG. DC.
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
• U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
• Operation Prevention

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot and edited by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper.