But the pill swallowed two weeks after his sixteenth birthday was fentanyl, a synthetic opiate up to 50 times more potent than heroin.

She died almost immediately.

One evening in January, after watching a movie with her mother Shannon, Makayla looked fine when she went to her bedroom with her dog, a husky who often slept on her bed.

But the next morning, Shannon discovered Makayla leaning against the headboard, half-sitting, an orange liquid coming out of her mouth and nose.

"She was stiff. I shook her, I shouted her name, I called for help," Shannon told AFP.

"My neighbors came and tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late. After that, I don't remember much."

In the United States, the opiate crisis is taking on catastrophic proportions.

More than 80,000 people died of opiate overdoses last year, mostly caused by synthetic drugs like fentanyl -- seven times more than a decade ago.

"This is the most dangerous epidemic we have seen," judge Ray Donovan, senior official of the American Anti-Drug Agency (DEA).

"Fentanyl is not like any other illicit drug, it is instantly deadly."

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And the number of deaths soars particularly quickly among young people.

In 2019, 493 American teenagers died of drug overdoses.

In 2021, there were 1,146.

They obtain counterfeit drugs through social networks.

And, without knowing it, they ingest pills containing fentanyl.

emojis

To reach the youngest, dealers go through applications like Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram.

They often replace the name of the drug with emojis.

Oxycodone, a highly addictive drug, thus takes the form of a half-peeled banana.

Xanax, a tranquilizer, that of a chocolate bar.

The number of Americans taking drugs has been fairly stable in recent years, but what's changing is how dangerous the substances are, according to Wilson Compton, deputy director of the US National Institute on Substance Abuse.

Fentanyl is so potent that the difference between living and dying is less than a gram.

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"It only takes very small amounts for it to become a poison that prevents you from breathing," Wilson Compton told AFP.

In the United States, most of the illegal fentanyl is manufactured by Mexican cartels, from products shipped from China.

This drug is good business for these criminal groups because the potency of fentanyl makes a smaller dose enough to fill a pill.

A kilogram of pure product, bought for about 12,000 dollars, is transformed into half a million pills, more easily transportable, which can be worth up to 30 dollars each.

Last year, the DEA seized nearly seven tons of fentanyl -- enough to kill every American.

Four out of 10 pills contained a lethal dose.

Model student

In a hall of the anti-drugs agency headquarters, pictures of the "faces of fentanyl" are displayed on the walls.

The collection of portraits pays homage to a dozen people whose lives have recently been taken away by drugs.

Under one of them: "Makayla - 16 years forever"

A model student and cheerleader, the young girl loved to paint, play with her dogs, and hoped to study law at university, says her mother Shannon Doyle, 41.

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After her parents divorced, Makayla had struggled with anxiety issues, made worse by the pandemic.

Last summer, a friend introduced him to counterfeit drugs.

The blue pills found in Makayla's bed were actually made entirely of fentanyl.

A police investigation is underway, but has not yet led to any arrests.

"Before, when you were addicted to drugs, you had 5, 10, 15 years to try to beat the addiction," explains Shannon Doyle in her home in Virginia Beach, a coastal town about 330 km south of Washington.

"You don't have that chance anymore."

The DEA has launched a prevention campaign on the risks of fentanyl, and initiatives are trying to increase the availability of naloxone, an antidote that can save someone overdosing.

Makayla's ashes rest in her bedroom, a room Shannon always peeks into morning and night, just like when she was alive.

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On Makayla's behalf, she set up a foundation to try to avert similar tragedies -- a way to deal with her grief, she said.

The teenager's best friend, 16-year-old Kaydence Blanchard, is having her first summer without her.

She's trying to fulfill the dreams they shared: getting her license and driving to the beach.

But for Makayla, "the future will never materialize", she underlines.

"She will never carry out any of the projects that we had imagined together."

© 2022 AFP