Dead City Punx, the L.A. graffiti crew that's turned into one of our city's most riotous punk bands for its pummeling backyard generator shows, have written songs about the ravages of drug addiction and lost lives in the past.
Now the band has teamed up with Feed the Streets to help the public prevent needless deaths due to opiate overdose in a short but informative video. As deaths from the synthetic opioid fentanyl reached an all-time high in Los Angeles in 2021, the latest milestone in overdose deaths increasing consecutively every year for the past seven years, the message comes not a moment too late.
The video first offers a "Trigger Warning" for the content before telling viewers: "This video is meant to bring awareness to fentanyl-related overdoses and how to administer NARCAN."
NARCAN is a drug in nasal spray form that can be administered to block opiates and reverse the effects of an overdose. The band says Feed the Streets will also be at Dead City's shows to give out NARCAN, as well as testing strips, as deadly fentanyl is increasingly found in a variety of drugs.
Three comedy scene veterans were killed at the same party in Venice last September after sharing cocaine that was laced with fentanyl, unbeknownst to the consumers. Just one of way too many examples of people unknowingly ingesting fentanyl instead of the narcotics they were seeking.
The video shows the band acting out a story, where they're hanging out backstage before a show. When four members split to get more beers, the band's guitarist stays behind, pulling out a bolsita discretely out of his socks and laying out three lines of white powder.
After snorting those, he smokes a little, drinks a little, then passes out on the couch. Band members come back to find him foaming from the mouth. A homie tries to rouse him and, finding him unresponsive, does the smart thing and grabs some NARCAN, sticking it in his ailing friend's nostril until he's revived.
Check it out:
The video was brought to our attention by legendary photographer and L.A. TACO veterano Erwin "Los Ojos de Muerte" Recinos, and is followed by helpful comments detailing how a person who is administered NARCAN should still definitely seek medical attention, as an overdose can still occur.
It's a far cry from the Reagan-era, War on Drugs commercials many of us were plied with in the past. A more sober look at the realities of overindulgence. And it is sure to be more effective in preventing inevitable overdoses and ruin among those who do not "just say no."
