At 4:54 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2016, I was called to our family home in Lake Placid. A family member thought they had heard a dog barking and found my half-brother nonresponsive. When I arrived, two Lake Placid police officers had already been on the scene for a couple of minutes. To my surprise, Ted was sitting upright on a couch with his head slumped forward. The senior officer was trying to find a pulse in his right wrist.

My medical training, (limited to pop culture television) intuitively caused me to check for his carotid pulse. I could find nothing, but I was hoping I was wrong.

One of the police officers administered Narcan, the drug used to reverse opioid overdoses. When that didn’t work, they hooked my brother up to an emergency defibrillator. The officer then gave Ted a few chest compressions to try to activate the blood flow. But an automated voice spoke from the machine and announced: “No shock advised.” I was kindly advised by the police that my brother was dead.

l later helped county Coroner Frank Whitelaw place my 24-year-old, college-educated half-brother in a yellow body bag, and I watched as he was driven away to the morgue. Ted was the nicest, kindest, gentlest person I have ever known, but he was now gone.

Ted had overdosed on the opioid drug fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller that is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and up to 100 times stronger and deadlier than morphine. A tiny bit can be fatal.

That night is seared in my memory. As a criminal defense attorney, I will never forget seeing photos received as part of reciprocal discovery of a 17-year-old Plattsburgh High School student lying dead on the bedroom floor of her boyfriend’s home in Cumberland Head from a opioid overdose.

The opioid overdose epidemic in this country is horrifying. Young Americans from all walks of life are dying at an unprecedented rate. This disease is so powerful it will strike anyone, anywhere. The diversity of its victims speaks to its reach: “gifted, smart, rich, poor, doctors, lawyers, cops, judges, moms, dads, bus drivers, pilots, nurses, financial planners …” in the words of county Coroner Frank Whitelaw.

In federal court recently, I told a client who had been busted by the feds for abusing and dealing in heroin that he was in the safest place he can be — jail. And yet, as I have been told, these drugs are even available in many of our jails and prisons.

Education is the only proven antidote to crime and drug abuse. County Coroner Frank Whitelaw has made it clear that he believes the first step in combating this horrific plague is effective, no-holds-barred education. In an excellent op-ed piece Frank wrote, he asks, “Is it enough to have Officer Bob come in to health class and show kids the fake display box of fake drugs made in 1971 and tell them drugs are bad and they’ll lose their teeth and have really bad body odor if they use drugs?” No, obviously not. It is not working. Frank has been imploring school officials to risk scaring students in the hope of saving lives.

“Are you so afraid to expose students to the graphic and harsh reality in our community that you simply turn a cold shoulder to it and hope for the best?” he continues. “It is not my job to just show up and pronounce someone dead. A coroner is supposed to serve the community through public education and awareness, in addition to investigating deaths and serving the families.”

I share Frank Whitelaw’s belief that just holding an assembly and showing “Reefer Madness” won’t help. These kids have been exposed to marijuana and have seen how distorted the official version of how that substance affects them is portrayed in the movie and in the government’s propaganda. As Frank says, “At least the kids who left my presentation had tears from crying, not from laughing.”

I applaud Frank’s bold efforts to educate school kids to the dangers of opioid use. I believe Frank is a hero. We need to combat this epidemic. Frank Whitelaw is right. Children need to be exposed to graphic images of opioid overdose victims as part of an aggressive drug education program. It is important for young people to be educated to distinguish among the different drugs; this will build credibility with children. Kids who hear exaggerated and untrue claims about marijuana use tend to discredit all attempts to educate them about the dangers of all illegal drugs and even dangerous prescription drugs.

Marijuana should be rescheduled, legalized and regulated like alcohol. The “Just Say No” drug war mentality education program has proven to be an unmitigated failure. There are more dangerous drugs available for kids now than before this war started. It is long past time to use credible, effective, truthful and graphic education to combat the scourge of drug overdose death.

Brian Barrett lives in Lake Placid.