When Montgomery Blair High School juniors Erol Kalayoglu and Zachary Carter saw the Speak Up Save a Life video contest organized by the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, the pair thought it was the perfect competition to enter.
While the $4,000 first-place cash prize was appealing, the students said the biggest reason they decided to participate was the goal behind the contest: to raise awareness about the dangers of illicit opioids, fentanyl and risk of overdose.
“We really like to use our medium as filmmakers to spread really important messages,” Kalayoglu told Bethesda Today on Wednesday, referencing the pair’s experience in a video production class at their Silver Spring high school.
Kalayoglu and Carter won first place on Saturday at the Save a Student Summit, earning the $4,000 and an additional $750 for being selected as the fan favorite.
T.J. Lau, a student at Julius West Middle School in Rockville, won second place and $2,000 for his video titled “2 mg Killer.” Sully Dettleff and Thomas Cooney, students from The Heights School, a private Catholic boys school in Potomac, were awarded the third-place prize of $750 for their video, “Protect a Friend.”
The prize donors, Magnolia Companies and The Good Samaritan Fund, also surprised 10 finalists, including Wheaton High School 10th grader Nathalie Gomez, with $500 each for their videos.
“[The competition] really does help spread the message to people in other communities,” Gomez said.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in a Sunday statement the contest received more than 600 entries, “many from groups of students working together, meaning thousands participated.”
“The production value and creativity was outstanding,” he said.
For Kalayoglu and Carter, their motivation for joining the contest was partly inspired by the impact of opioids on Blair students. In the 2022-2023 school year, Blair staff members administered naloxone, a drug used in the case of opioid emergencies, in two incidents of student overdoses, according to the school’s student newspaper, Silver Chips. Three Blair students also overdosed off school grounds, the student newspaper reported.
Gomez, one of the finalists who received $500, also said she wanted to raise awareness on the issue due to opioid usage being a problem in her community. At Odessa Shannon Middle School in Kemp Mill, where Gomez attended, she said students often used drugs.
“I’ve witnessed a lot in my own eyes, and I really wanted to spread the word,” Gomez said.
Kalayoglu and Carter’s video depicts one boy buying counterfeit pills from another, who says the pills would work just like Adderall, a stimulant medication for conditions such as ADHD that’s often misused to enhance performance in academics. The first boy goes home, takes the pills that are laced with fentanyl, then overdoses. Downstairs at the dinner table, the boy’s parents wonder where he is, as the video zooms in on an empty plate at the table.
“We wanted to also take a look at how overdoses don’t just happen with people who are taking drugs a lot or people who are addicted to drugs, but it can happen to anyone,” Kalayoglu said. “Especially when fentanyl is involved, because of how powerful fentanyl is … it can be laced in many, many drugs.”
According to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Of counterfeit pills, 62% contained at least 2 milligrams of fentanyl, considered a potentially lethal dose, according to the DEA.
Carter said a key part of the pair’s video was showing the impact of overdoses on families.
“The last shot of our video of the empty plate was meant to symbolize the emptiness at the dinner table,” Kalayoglu said.
Gomez’s video focuses on how stress can lead teens to take drugs for temporary relief, a common theme in the student video submissions according to McCarthy.
“We are gaining insight from this video contest,” McCarthy said. “We need to help our young people make better choices and support them, so they don’t turn to drugs as a means of coping with the anxiety they have in their lives.”
Carter said informing others about the issue of opioid overdoses was very important due to the impact on kids around the country. The pair said they’ll likely spend their prize money on better film equipment.
“I really want to keep on getting involved in different video competitions or projects to spread good messages,” Carter said.
