Hollywood high school student dies after taking fentanyl-laced pill in apparent string of overdoses

A teenage girl at a Hollywood high school died on Tuesday and another was hospitalized, after taking what police believe were counterfeit pills filled with fentanyl.

The incident, which is being investigated as a homicide by Los Angeles police, comes as federal officials announced new national counts of overdose deaths, showing nearly 200 people in the US are dying each day due to overdoses of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

Since 2019 the US has seen a huge surge in teen overdose deaths, as a flood of counterfeit pills, which look like normal oxycodone, Percocet or Xanax tablets but actually contain fentanyl, have hit the black market.

Police said officers were called to Bernstein high school in Hollywood on Tuesday evening after a parent went to the school to find a student who had not come home as expected.

Investigators said the victims apparently purchased what they believed were Percocet pills in a nearby park. Police noted that emergency crews responded to several other overdose calls in the same area, believed to be other high school students.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid so potent that one counterfeit pill can prove fatal. Vast quantities of these fake pills are being smuggled into the US and are circulating in the illicit drug market, meaning that teens often ingest the deadly drug unknowingly.

Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids more than doubled since 2019 and now make up about 67% of overdose deaths.

Hundreds of parents of children who have died from fentanyl overdoses have organized to raise student awareness of the dangers and call on the government to take more action to stop deaths.