A Mother's Love That Launched A Movement
Tiffany Leigh Robertson was an incredibly loving, beautiful, talented young woman with a bright future. An excellent student, former cheerleader, student leader and community activist, Tiffany was well known for both her musical talents and her many volunteer and community service activities that included work with the disabled and organizing the student Westfield Yellow Ribbon Campaign to garner support for members of the military activated after 9/11. After making the third round of the American Idol auditions twice Tiffany intended to pursue a career doing what she loved the most, performing and teaching music. She graduated high school a year early and completed her first year of junior college at 17 years old.
After completing her first year of junior college Tiffany returned to Ohio to visit family and friends before moving on to attend Florida State University. Even the best laid plans and the most charmed lives can go astray and in Tiffany’s case they did.
After reuniting family and friends in Ohio Tiffany chose to take time off from school. During that time she found a relationship and started a beautiful family. While she wasn’t working with any particular organization Tiffany still spent time giving back to those in need and helping others in the community. It was during one of her missions of mercy that Tiffany fell through a dilapidated porch and suffered 3 herniated discs in her thoracic and lumbar spine. Tiffany did everything one would be expected to do. She want to the emergency room was referred to her family physican and a neurosurgeon.
At this same point in time news of the “Opioid Epidemic” broke and the number of drug related deaths rose to such levels that it garnered national attention. Almost immediately legislators began attacking physicans and care providers who were prescribing medication and passed laws that not only dictated patient care but criminalized what was deemed as “over prescribing”. As a direct result of these actions many physicians became fearful of losing their licenses or being accused of “over prescribing” and in response many simply quit prescribing any opiate medications to their patients at all, choosing instead to shove all their patients into pain clinics which were ill prepared for a massive influx of patients. This left many valid patients like Tiffany with extensively long waiting periods for pain treatment, in her case 8 weeks with a recommendation of Tylenol for her pain.
As a result of this many patients like Tiffany injured and in severe pain were abandoned. Sadly many of these valid pain patients like Tiffany turned to the only relief they could find and instead of safe predictable prescriptions managed by a physician they were forced to seek out relief by other means and the cartel drugs were readily available and waiting for them in cities all across this country.
An aquaintance offered Tiffany what appeared to be a prescription Percocet. Instead is was a fake pill that looked identical to a Percocet but it was not, instead it contained a lethal amount of illicit fentanyl. As my beautiful child lay slowly suffocating to death in the back room of their residence the two women made multiple trips to two separate ATM’s nearby making withdrawals from Tiffany’s checking account emptying her bank account; even returning for the last withdrawal after the coroner had come and removed my child’s lifeless body.
At approximately 3 am on Monday, February 2, 2015 according to one of the females present, “We heard her snoring really loud and I started to call 911 but ****** said we shouldn’t call because we might get in trouble and made me hang up”. She also stated that they had performed CPR on Tiffany and she was breathing normally again. The paramedics were not called until 7:30 am 4 hours later. They were unable to resuscitate my daughter and Tiffany was pronounced dead at the scene, her beautiful life and music silenced forever.
In Tiffany’s case like so many others her death was the result of the Mexican cartels and China who made and distributed the illicit fentanyl that has flooded our country and has largely contributed to well over 900,000 deaths due to drug related causes in the last 7 years alone. More persons died from drug poisonings in the United States in 2015 than during any previous year on record. In 2014, there were approximately one and a half times more drug poisoning deaths in the United States than deaths from motor vehicle crashes. In 2014, illicit opioids were involved in 28,647 deaths, or 61% of all drug poisoning deaths; the rate of lethal illicit opioid poisonings has more than tripled since 2000. According to the CDC 2014 data demonstrate that the United States’ opioid poisoning epidemic includes two distinct but interrelated trends: a 15-year increase in overdose deaths involving prescription opioid pain relievers and a recent surge in the illicit opioid poisoning deaths, driven largely by heroin and illicit fentanyl. The rate of drug poisoning deaths involving synthetic opioids illicit fentanyl and illicit tramadol more than doubled in only 1 year between 2013 and 2014.
According to the DEA more than 85% of the killer illegal drugs heroin, illicit fentanyl and methamphetamines have entered this country over the U.S. Mexican border. The recent DEA Heroin Signature report indicates 91.6% of the heroin in the United States is Mexican in origin and being generated by the cartels who are taking advantage of porous borders and flawed immigration policies. China is the sole source for illicit fentanyl in the U.S. In 2019 it was uncovered that China had been giving tax rebates to it’s companies manufacturing and distributing illicit fentanyl into the U.S. In collaboration with transnational criminal drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, China has continued to engage in an undeclared chemical warfare against the U.S. which has claimed more than 600,000 American lives since 2013 from their illicit fentanyl products in partnership with the Mexican drug cartels.
A Note From Our Founder
I was very blessed to have had the most wonderful relationship with my daughter that any mother could ever wish for. The loving bond between Tiffany and myself transcended worldly things and we created a world filled with joy, laughter and love. A world that was cut short by pharmaceutical companies, failed government policies and criminal drug cartel organizations operating with impunity in our nation killing our children.
It was during the darkest moments of my despair that I came to the realization that our tragedy and my grief of loss was being repeated 389 times every single day, as mothers and fathers across this nation continue to bury their children due to illicit narcotics being manufactured and distributed by criminal cartel organizations and China’s illicit fentanyl. It was with this realization that I formed Parents Against Illicit Narcotics to fight back against these illicit drugs claiming our children’s lives.
Through P-A-I-N it is my hope that we can finally offer healing, hope and justice to the families affected by flawed legislature that removed patient care from chronic pain suffers and for those affected by these illicit narcotics so that Tiffany’s loving and giving spirit can continue on to help others long after her voice was silenced forever.
If you have lost a loved one or you are struggling to save a loved one fighting substance abuse we are here for you to offer resources, magnify your voices and become your sword in this battle for our children’s lives. Together we can make this right and provide our children with safe drug free homes and communities while providing adequate and appropriate medical care to those who need it.
Join us, we are an army of grieving and affected families on a mission that nobody can stop. – Virginia Krieger
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