The City of Dallas is working on a new campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of fentanyl.

City Council Member Paula Blackmon appeared on Fox 4 on Thursday to discuss the initiative.

“One pill can kill,” she said. “We are working to get information out to parents, to students, to our community at large to understand what is at stake here.”

Blackmon explained that she, working with Council Member Adam Bazaldua, has created a group where community members and local elected leaders can work together to alert people of not only the dangers but also the prevalence of fentanyl.

“We’ve launched an education campaign so parents can have these hard conversations with their kids,” she said. “We’re seeing fentanyl in so many illicit drugs,” she said.

The Dallas Express reached out to the City for more details on this awareness campaign but received no further information by press time.

Council Member Blackmon added that schools should “absolutely” carry Narcan.

She said staff and parents should both be trained in how to administer the “potentially lifesaving medication” that can reverse the effects of an otherwise deadly overdose.

“We’ve seen kids that will take a Xanax or an Adderall so they can get through tests,” Blackmon continued. “What we need to do is make sure that … [if] one of those pills has fentanyl, there’s ways to … alter the course” of the overdose.

She said that Dallas Fire-Rescue and the Dallas Police Department are already equipped with Narcan, and the City is now giving it to its homeless response teams “because we’re seeing [fentanyl] hit the homeless population.”

Blackmon said the City’s Opioid Response Strike Force found that Dallas Independent School District (DISD) was in need of both Narcan and the usage training that accompanies it.

DISD voted on Thursday night to allow trained staff to administer Narcan to students suffering from a drug overdose.

During her interview, Blackmon also said she was in support of fentanyl testing strips, which are currently illegal for consumer use under Texas drug paraphernalia laws.

“We’ve put this on our legislative agenda to work with our lawmakers in Austin to allow strips to be sold,” she said. “It’s not that we’re condoning drug use. It’s just we are giving extra precautions for individuals … if they are taking an illicit drug.”

“We feel that fentanyl strips — they are a strategy that can bring down these overdoses,” she continued. “They should be legal and accessible to folks.”

Several bills to legalize the testing strips have been introduced in the Texas legislature from both sides of the political aisle. Even Governor Greg Abbot has expressed support for lifting the ban.

“We also need to legalize fentanyl test strips in the state of Texas so that people will be able to test drugs at home to know whether or not it might be laced with fentanyl,” he said, per The Houston Chronicle. “All of these strategies together can save hundreds, if not thousands of lives just in the state of Texas on an annual basis alone.”

While support for legalization has gained widespread support in the Texas government, opponents throughout America maintain that the testing strips enable drug use.

“Fentanyl strips don’t save lives,” Kansas State Senator Molly Baumgardner (R) said last year, as reported by the Kansas Reflector. “Let’s be clear. There are individuals that want fentanyl in the drug that they’ve purchased or acquired.”