Methadone: The latest teen threat

The last thing 15-year-old Austin Riley Jones told his mother was “good night” and that he loved her.

“I love you, too, Bubba,” Cathy Bandoni told her son, who had spent the day cleaning to raise $20 to take his girlfriend to the movies and then had dinner with his parents.

But the next morning, Jan. 18, Austin did not wake up. Bandoni and her husband, Davy Jones, discovered their only son died in his sleep of a methadone overdose.

Austin’s parents have teamed up with local anti-drug coalition members to warn the public about the dangers of methadone — a prescription painkiller that authorities say is cheap, accessible and increasingly has been causing fatal overdoses.

Local drug abuse task force officials will be meeting Monday to discuss ideas for a public anti-methadone abuse campaign that will also extend throughout the school district. They are hoping it will be as successful as the recent anti-methamphetamine efforts in Washoe County that authorities say contributed to a decline in its use.

Bandoni and Jones learned that the two tiny methadone pills their 6-foot, 200-pound son took after a party the night before created a deadly combination with his routine depression medication.

Washoe County Medical Examiner Dr. Ellen Clark ruled Austin’s death accidental and found that he died of acute combined methadone and fluoxetine intoxication. He had a prescription for the latter drug. Clark described him in her autopsy report as a “naive user,” meaning that deadly dose likely was his first time trying it.

“Our son died on two methadone tablets,” Bandoni said. “He didn’t know what he was getting himself into. This is just so shocking. I never thought in a million years this would happen to us.”

“It wasn’t a handful of pills he took, he took two and was just experimenting,” said Jones, who memorialized his son by having a tattoo of his face etched into his arm. “It’s insane. There is no forgiveness to this drug. It’s deadly. Austin had the whole world in front of him.”

Sgt. Mac Venzon, who heads the regional Street Enforcement Team, which targets drug and prostitution activity, said more local youths are experimenting with prescription drugs in general and believe they are safer than drugs purchased on the street.

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-By Jaclyn O'Malley