Call someone you know at risk of an overdose. Do it now.

Fentanyl is killing our kids, our neighbors, even your friends. Lots of them. Every day and every night. It doesn't care if you are a doctor or a lawyer or a candlestick maker. It doesn't care which side of the tracks you live on.

Letters to the editor won't fix this. Pontificating on social media won't stop it. Senators and governors can't legislate it away. I want you — yes, you, to pick up the phone right now.

Call someone, tell them you love them. Warn them of the danger. Go ahead. Risk embarrassment. It is that important.

You know who to call: one of your kids; your cousin's son; your best friend's daughter; your buddy from work, your little brother. If you don't know, something like the following scenario is more likely to happen to you:

You and your wife finally went on that long-imagined vacation to Ireland. It was great. But before you returned home, your calls to your 29-year-old son back home weren't answered. OK, maybe he's busy. But by the time you got home you had a bad feeling deep down.

First thing, you went to his house and knocked. No answer. You walked around the house and saw his car in the driveway. Not good. You went inside and there he was. Instantly, you knew.

My friend's son thought it was "jolly olde" cocaine. It was more. The toxicology report said it contained 15 times the lethal dose of fentanyl. It was the sledgehammer end of a diabolical business model that kills our kids, and in this case, left two little girls without a daddy.

Think about this at the next party, when someone passes you a joint. It is a fact that fentanyl can be, and does get laced into jolly olde reefer cigarettes. And everything else.

My wife and I just got back from the out-of-state funeral. Yes, it was comforting to see old friends who we have not seen in half a lifetime, but ... after the Mass, on the walls of Holy Redeemer Church beamed photos of my friend's son with his memorable smile — as a baby, as a running-back scoring a middle-school touchdown, at the beach. There was a photo of my daughters playing with him, amid dog kisses on a sunny, long-ago yard. This is not my first funeral of this kind, nor my second. How about you? If only it were our last.

I will call my children right now, in their various time zones. Each will hear that I love them. I will listen to them. Then they will hear this story and — hopefully — they will carry on this phone tree.

Please, make the call now.

Mark Stratman lives in Excelsior.