In the high school counseling office of our Waldorf school, there are two small white boxes with red lettering, labeled NARCAN. Along with coffee shop baristas, parents, educators, and people across the US, I’ve been trained to administer this medicine to members of our community to counteract an opioid overdose. In 2022, opioid overdose claimed upwards of 80,000 lives in the US,1 and although that number is declining, access to substances of all kinds is just a social media scroll away for teenagers.2 A recent loss in the Waldorf community has brought this dangerous trend closer to home.
Every summer, Avery Ping stayed with his grandparents in bucolic upstate New York, spending time on the grounds of a biodynamic farm and Waldorf school. In fall 2024, he left his school in the Pacific Northwest to spend a semester at the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf school in upstate New York, where he quickly made friends. He decided to come back in January to continue Grade 10 and was looking forward to a dogsledding trip in Northern Minnesota in February with other Hawthorne Valley students. He intended to complete his high school education at Hawthorne Valley and graduate with the class of 2027.
The day Avery returned to his hometown that December, he decided to explore MDMA, a substance currently being touted online as a treatment for depression. He ordered the substance, also known as Ecstasy, on the social media platform Snapchat. Unbeknownst to him, it was mixed with methamphetamine and fentanyl, a deadly opioid that kills thousands of US teens each year.
That night, on the east coast, Avery’s grandfather, Martin Ping, awakened in the middle of the night, a strange sensation urging him out of sleep. He picked up his phone, sensing a soul-level disturbance that he could not explain. Moments later, it began to ring. His son, Aaron Ping, was calling him, telling him that his 16-year-old grandson had just died of an overdose.
As with everything in the world, the issues we face are a part of the truth of our time, and we must accept and examine them for what they are. Harmful and addictive substances exist, and young people are using them. Depression, anxiety, and loneliness are rampant. Technology, capitalism, and materialism are impacting the way we connect with ourselves, our communities, and nature.
Martin Ping offered this analysis: “Surveillance capitalism and endless consumerism have precipitated a spiritual crisis, breeding distraction, disconnect, depression, drug addiction, and suicide. The wholesale theft of attention through intentionally addictive devices and antisocial media platforms has made our children especially vulnerable to these forces, exposing them to be exploited and poisoned for profit.”
Aaron, Avery’s father, explains the nefarious conditions leading to his son’s death: “The business model is devastatingly simple: dealers can multiply their profits ten to twenty times by cutting common teenage substances with fentanyl and other synthetics. Social media platforms give these experimental drugs an instant pathway to our children, while features like Snapchat and Telegram’s disappearing messages ensure evidence vanishes before law enforcement can act.”
As bystanders, we may automatically begin to ask if there is more to Avery’s story. Was he struggling in other areas? Did he have addiction issues? Was there trauma in his childhood? Or perhaps we decide we cannot face this kind of tragedy, and instead turn away. But moralizing shuts down dialogue and understanding, and denying suffering closes our hearts and negates our capacity to effect change.
Avery’s father and grandfather are partnering with other families to raise awareness and change legislation around social media culpability.3 Alongside that work, Martin Ping connects with Avery each morning, looking at his photograph, feeling his supportive presence. He can sense the work that Avery can do from across the threshold, helping other young people as they navigate the realities of the world we live in.
From afar, we can do our part too. In my office, just past the filing cabinet with the NARCAN boxes, is a bulletin board for school announcements. Avery’s photograph, along with a warning about fentanyl and Snapchat, is posted there. The high school students have been stopping and looking at his smile and the depth of expression in his eyes. They ask me about this beautiful boy, and I share his story, thanking him for his sacrifice.
Try as we may to solve these issues with material substances and solutions, the problems are not just material; they are spiritual, so our answers must address all these layers of our existence. How do we begin? First, we must accept the world we live in, then we can act with open (and sometimes broken) hearts. If we are on a spiritual path, we must extend our thinking, feeling, and willing further to explore difficult questions. There are no simple answers to complex problems, but we can make a start by bridging the spiritual and material with contemplation, love, and action.
Image Avery Ping with his grandfather Martin (left) and his father Aaron (right), Photo: Aaron Ping
Footnotes
- National Institute on Drug Abuse, Drug Overdose Deaths: Facts and Figures
- Solotaroff, P., “Inside Snapchat’s Teen Opioid Crisis,” Rolling Stone, (2024, June 20).
- See Reisberg, Nicki: “Snapchat’s Deadly Failure (with Aaron Ping),” Scrolling2Death (a podcast for parents who are worried about social media). See also: O’Neill, Matthew, and Perri Peltz, “Can’t Look Away: Jolt,” Jolt.Film – Discover the Most Important Independent Films, accessed May 2025.
yes the scourges of of our present day humanity are almost to numerous to count, especially for our youth and now even for our infants .. “oh my say the parents what are we to do to keep our offspring safe” ? does anyone ever ask “what is the role of being a parent” ? what does that really entail? and is the present breeding population or their grandparents, even capable of accepting such a magnificent responsibility ? there are NO “mass” solutions to humanities self inflicted ailments .. until and unless the supposedly older wiser (perhaps native?) generations are no longer marginalized and their powerful life wisdom, story telling and rituals become an integral part of our socially fractured communities there are no national or even state solutions to not just Youth stupidity but the stupidity of the masses and their infotainment addictions that simply transfer to their off spring and like cancer spread thought their minds and bodies. Humanities condition in every/any location is always a reflection of the communities care and action to alter the course of the materialistic death eaters so that our youth can rediscover their SPIRITUAL dimension BEFORE their 7th year of life .. that requires responsible parenting by whomever takes on that task in this fractured and degenerate society. ACT LOCAL where you live in towns and villages across your counties, states and country. Real hearts and minds of real caring and loving people can accomplish the tasks that NO external agency can ever deliver the care and loving kindness that is required to help and deliver our youth from the clutches of Ahriman & Lucifer who now have full control over humanity via that technology or little mobile version our youth hold up in front of their eyes from morning to night and beyond. We/I have created the false reality in order to entrap and enslave them, so build a giant bonfire and bring all your electronic de(vices) along and seek to concur what,how and by whom they should be used. Before we were all visually addicted by TELE-Vision in the 1950’s, all our scientific research clearly warned of visual/mental addiction of our species to this break through technology now carried by almost everyone as a sign of intelligence and essential for most civic, social and financial functions. Humans continue to create our own monsters and enjoy hypnotizing others to them. May the forces of creation forgive us for our stupidity.
Laura, thank you for having the courage to write this heart wrenching article of an epidemic that has and is spreading through every town and village across countries around the planet. Yes history tells us that the easiest way to conquer a people is to addict them to something that you can supply and control so that they loose control of their families, lives and future .. I wonder who or what would seek that sort of revenge on humanity ?