Parents push for Kellsie’s Law to save children from addiction

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Alaskan families who have lost children to drug addiction and overdoses are pushing for something they say could save lives: mandatory drug addiction education with an emphasis on opioids.

The Mat-Su Opioid Task Force is spearheading the effort to get Kellsie’s Law passed in memory of 24-year-old Kellsie Green, who died from complications of heroin withdrawal at the Anchorage Correctional Complex in 2016. The law would require a yearly one-hour lesson on the science of addiction for middle and high school students.

John Green, Kellsie’s father, said his daughter told him a year before she died that she never imagined drug addiction to be a part of her life. She felt she could help steer others in a different direction.

“She says, you know dad, she said ‘in school, they tell you that you can get addicted, but nobody explains what addiction is.’ And she said ‘they tell you you can have withdrawals — but nobody tells you what you go through what withdrawals are like — that it hurts to take a shower even, and the anxiety and everything that goes along with it,’” Green said. “And she said, ‘when I get clean, I want to write a book and I want to get into the schools and I want to show this to all the school kids so that they don’t have to do what I did.’”

Kellsie didn’t make it, but Green says getting her “lesson” out is important for him and others who have lost their children to drug addiction.

“For me, it’s a fulfillment of a promise to Kellsie to get the word out and to create the awareness, and to let people know that, hey, you do this and you could actually die from this. This isn’t a joke,” he said.

According to the Opioid Task Force, the information is particularly important in light of the fentanyl crisis racking Alaska, where even a small dose in a counterfeit pill can kill. Green said that’s another reason why he feels the lesson must be mandatory.

“It has to be mandated, it really does. It can’t be an option that it gets taught, because we are losing too many of our kids,” he said. “We teach a lot of other things that won’t really affect somebody’s life, but this could be a life or death lesson. This could be the thing that prompts somebody to not use for the first time and allows them to live a full life.”

The Mat-Su Opioid Task Force is looking for legislators to sponsor the bill and hope it can be introduced in the legislative session that starts this fall. People who are interested in learning more about the legislation can contact Michael Carson, Chair of the Mat-Su Opioid Task Force at 907-315-4988

Parents who have lost a child due to drug overdose and are willing to join an existing group of parents providing testimony about why the law is needed can contact Karen Malcolm-Smith at karenemalcolm@gmail.com or 907-632-1995.

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