Her son, Michael, 36, was dead—a victim of the latest drug to make its murderous entrance into the street supply.
“As soon as I heard the word ‘autopsy’ I just fell to the floor,” Kelley told Freedom Magazine. “We had Michael cremated. He’s on my shelf. Parents need to know this is my kid in the box.
“Do you want to see it? Do you want me to hold some of his ashes? I am willing to do whatever I can to make it so no other mother goes through this.”
Carfentanil is called a “weapons-grade” poison because it’s 10,000 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl.
A speck less than the size of a grain of salt or a poppy seed can instantly land a user in an early grave.
“He had enough carfentanil in him to kill 500 people.”
Carfentanil is so devastatingly lethal that Russia actually used it as a weapon against Chechen separatists in the country’s North Caucasus region. Now, carfentanil’s victims are people like Michael Nalewaja, a union-recognized Alaskan electrician who had recently earned a national award.
Michael had drug problems in the past, but had spent time in rehabilitation and was believed to be past them. That ended at a party. When what he thought was cocaine was cut into lines and offered up, the temptation was too great.
Michael snorted up a line.
It was his very last act on this earth.
Carfentanil is often passed off as other drugs—pressed into phony, knockoff copies of legitimate opioid pills or, as happened with Michael, masquerading as cocaine.
When you buy street drugs—no matter what the dealer says—you never know what you’re going to get.
“This presents an extremely frightening proposition for substance abuse dependent people who seek opioids on the street today,” Frank Tarentino, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) chief of operations for its northeast region, said.
Carfentanil’s use has been surging. Authorities believe it’s because China has been cracking down on supplying the precursor chemicals to make fentanyl, which is lethal enough in its own right.
Now, Mexican cartels are thought to be making carfentanil on their own, using it to boost the potency of fentanyl.
Authorities say the spread is accelerating.
Overdose deaths involving carfentanil nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2025, carfentanil was found in over 1,400 drug seizures—up from just 54 in 2022.
Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations at the DEA, said, “Carfentanil definitely has that potential of spreading throughout the United States unless law enforcement really focuses in … and they develop intelligence as to how these drug addicts are getting it.”
“Every ounce of cocaine comes through the cartels,” Kelley told Freedom. “If it’s bad cocaine or good cocaine, from a high-end dealer or a low-end dealer, it’s all from the cartels. Almost all of it is now being cut with fentanyl or carfentanil.
“The roulette is that, if what you’re buying has a little bit, it might not kill you. But if it’s like my son, where it’s all carfentanil, you’re gonna die.”
Kelley is a fighter at heart. “People like us, that’s how we process grief—we do action. People think we are okay but we are not.”
That urgency now shapes what she believes needs to change.
“I am very concerned that we are creating a false narrative that the answer to everything is having Narcan available. It doesn’t always work with carfentanil.
“The likelihood that there was any amount of Narcan that would have reversed the damage in Michael’s brain—the chances that he could have been saved—are zero.
“The counterfeit drug he was given was almost all straight carfentanil. He had enough carfentanil in him to kill 500 people.”
Her suggestion for fighting the monster is simple: Change “accidental overdose” on death certificates to “homicide.” If a drug dealer sells a lethal drug to someone and it kills them, don’t charge them with drug dealing, charge them with murder. Then put them away for a long, long time.
“It is coming down to a need for some heavy, heavy criminal prosecution,” she said. “If you get caught, and you sold drugs, and let’s say the person was revived by Narcan, then that’s still attempted murder. That person almost died. By the grace of God, if somebody had Narcan, that’s the only reason they lived.
“Essentially you attempted to murder them.”
“In comparison to the millions that drug dealers make, people who die are just collateral damage.”
In fact, that change in prosecution is happening. In Palmer, Alaska, drug dealer Sean Mobley was sentenced to 30 years in prison because he first sold carfentanil to a man who survived only through the use of Narcan. The same night, he went on to sell the drug to a 16-year-old girl. She died, Mobley dumped her body and fled, then parked at a spot from which he continued peddling carfentanil.
“Mr. Mobley showed complete disregard for human life when he provided the deadly dose of carfentanil to the 16-year-old victim,” Robert A. Saccone, special agent in charge, DEA Seattle Field Division, said.
“Anyone who takes a pill that is not prescribed to them by their doctor is playing a game of Russian roulette with their life,” Sara Carter, US drug czar, said.
Michael Nalewaja played that Russian roulette—he spun the cylinder, squeezed the trigger, and he lost.
“The dealers are trying to create more and more hardcore addicts,” Kelley told Freedom. “In comparison to the millions that drug dealers make, people who die are just collateral damage.”
“I wish I had the magic answer.”
The Church of Scientology has an answer: the Truth About Drugs program.
More than 100 million of its drug education booklets have been distributed worldwide in 22 languages, with awareness events held in 180 countries and public service announcements aired on over 500 TV stations.
It’s a preventive program, designed to empower readers with the facts, so they can make their own decision to live drug-free.
And it works.
Once people start taking drugs, the trouble grows. So do the cemeteries. The best bet, the only bet, is to keep them from starting in the first place.
If you don’t start using drugs, you never have to die from them. It’s that simple.
Take it from Kelley Nalewaja.
