It's the Brian Laird show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. Parents in Brooklyn, maybe you've heard about this story reported by Curbed a few months ago, the Brooklyn Waldorf School, a private preschool and elementary school, distributed an alarming notice to parents.

Apparently children had found a full-fentinal capsule, as they called it, a full fentanyl capsule on the Christmas Attic's playground

and given its candy-colored nature, they wanted to take it home.

And while the candy-colored canisters found at the park eventually

tested negative for traces of fentanyl, you can imagine the frenzy that resulted from the

school's notification. After all, it came just a month after a one-year-old passed away at a preschool

in the Bronx, remember that, due to exposure to fentanyl.

All this to say, it feels like fentanyl is everywhere and it's seemingly unavoidable bars are

stocking fentanyl test strips the city council just passed a bill making Narcan available at

elementary and middle schools and such a measure begs the question

just how prevalent is fentanyl in the illicit drug supply in New York City according to a study published by researchers at

NYU School of Global Public Health, more than 80% of people who inject drugs

test positive for fentanyl, but only 18% intend to take it.

So how do we keep our loved ones or even ourselves safe

when a drug that's 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine

is laced in so much of our street drugs.

Joining us now to try to answer these questions and Moore is one of the researchers

in the study, Courtney McNight, clinical assistant professor of epidemiology at the

NYU School of Global Public Health.

Professor McKnight, thank you so much for joining us.

Welcome to WNYC.

Thank you. And I WNYC. Thank you.

...