Written by Efrayim Zaghi

This Monday, March 18, 2023, the LAPD paid a visit to Valley Torah Boys High School to bring up two of the most common causes of death for teenagers our age: drunk driving and fentanyl. The LAPD brought in a car that had crashed due to a drunk driver, and it was horrifying to see the impact that drinking and driving can have on all the people who witnessed the incident as well as the people involved. The LAPD delivered a powerful narrative that truly illustrated how dangerous illicit drug use can be, and how dangerous it could be to even consume a single drink and proceed to drive after.

Ever since students arrived at the school at roughly 7:45 a.m. for davening, the presence of the LAPD in the school was so heavy it could almost be felt, especially with the destroyed car on a trailer from an accident that occurred just this past year. Many students were curious and went to check out the scene outside or talk to the cops. Although the lecture and presentation were only given to eleventh and twelfth-grade students, it is safe to say all students, independent of their grade, learned something about the dangers of drunk driving that day.

Another thing that the LAPD lectured about was the dangers of illicit drug use, especially fentanyl. The LAPD mentioned that when buying and using these offhand drugs, it is hard to tell if they are real drugs or if they contain lethal amounts of fentanyl. The LAPD said that it is “impossible to tell if fentanyl is in the drug until it is too late (and you already ingested it).” Some other powerful facts that the LAPD spoke about were that depending on the person, two milligrams of fentanyl is enough to be lethal. This makes it 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. The LAPD brought up that although many people do not intentionally buy fentanyl, it is put into other drugs to increase the addictive potency as well as make it cheaper to produce. 

Although the LAPD presentation included a lot of information about Fentanyl, it primarily focused on drunk driving. The students were shown videos of places that are in Encino and Tarzana where horrible accidents happened, either due to drunk driving or street racing. It made a huge impact when students realized that these people who they saw passed away in an instant, were teenagers just trying to live their life the same way many students do. Another much more hands-on part of the presentation was when the LAPD department chose the co-presidents of the school to try out a drunk driving simulator as well as dialing a phone while driving. The outcome of the simulator was that both students crashed into other vehicles within roughly a minute of starting the simulation, showing truly how hard it is to drive while drunk or using your cell phone.

The presentation lasted for approximately two hours and had a significant impact on the students who attended. One student was asked about how they felt about the presentation and their future choices, they responded, “After seeing the death and impact of those decisions, I am confident that won’t ever drive drunk or try recreational drug use.” After seeing these real-world examples of people who became seriously injured as a result of drunk driving, awareness of these extremely prevalent dangers was definitely increased among the Valley Torah students.