KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Gem Theatre on Thursday, three people under the age of 25 appeared on the screen: Jaden Anderson, Victor Avalos Marmolejo and Jordan Coburn.

“Hi, I’m Jaden. I’m Victor. Hey, I’m Jordan.”

All three died from fentanyl overdose. Now, all three have been brought back to life with artificial intelligence to be the spokespeople for Kansas City’s newest fentanyl awareness campaign, Unfinished Legacies.

The city partnered with local advertising agency BarkleyOKRP and United Way of Greater Kansas City to create the ad.

It’s a campaign that Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas wants to be different from the anti-drug campaigns of his youth, like the Just Say No campaign led by former First Lady Nancy Reagan and campaigns from Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known as D.A.R.E.

“They’re not statistics, they’re not just memories, they’re real people,” Lucas said. “They are real people who will be delivering a message to young people in our community that we hope can save lives each day.”

Kansas City fentanyl deaths have increased more than 1,000% in five years, according to the city. Overdoses are the second leading cause of death for 18 to 24 year olds and the fourth leading cause of death in the city overall, health department chief science officer Alex Francisco said.

An analysis by The Star of medical examiners’ data on fentanyl-related deaths in a nine-county region in the Kansas City area, as part of the Deadly Dose series, also found the number of fatalities rose dramatically in recent years. Overall, fatalities increased by 584% across all counties from 2019 through 2022, according to that reporting.

That increase was even more pronounced in Jackson County, the reporting showed, where the number of fentanyl-related deaths jumped 654% — from 22 to 166 fatalities — in that same time frame. The data showed that across the nine counties, those between the ages of 20 and 40 were hit hardest. Of the total deaths, 223 were people in their 20s, 255 victims were in their 30s and 148 deaths involved people in their 40s.

The families said they feel their loved ones are well-represented in this campaign, aimed at steering kids and teenagers away from drug use. While the city does not yet have statistics to back up the effectiveness of such a campaign, officials believe this could be one of the best ways to discourage drug use among youth in the city.

‘Our legacy didn’t end with fentanyl’

The first words from Coburn, the centerpiece story for the ad, feature statements his loved ones never heard him say.

“I can’t believe I’m dead,” an AI-generated Coburn says in the ad.

In the video, he explains how a friend offered him help for constant back pain after a car accident. He died from fentanyl overdose on March 3, 2019 at 23 years old, a month before the birth of his second child. His family is pleased to have his likeness encourage other people to stay away from drugs.

“We don’t go blind behind what happened,” Coburn’s mother, Juanita Coburn said. “We just basically fight it head on so it doesn’t happen to anyone else in our family.”

In one of the ads, Anderson says she thought a friend gave her Xanax, but she died from fentanyl overdose on July 12, 2022 at age 21.

“No one wants to be the face of something like this, but I want to share my story, if it can help someone else,” the AI-generated Anderson says in the ad.

Anderson’s mother described her daughter as funny, fabulous and brilliant. Seeing Anderson recreated with AI was jarring for her loved ones, who were glad that her likeness was accurate, but not exactly the real person they knew and loved.

“I cried, I still cry,” Anderson’s mother Holly Yocum said on a panel at the presentation. “But I think that one of the things that’s been helpful is her voice is different. It’s like it’s her, but it’s not her. So that’s helped me a little bit. I think if the voice was exact, I don’t know that I can be sitting here.”

Marmolejo was found dead by his mother on July 22, 2021, at 16 years old. In his video, the AI-generated version of him says he never took fentanyl before, but had heard people who have and were fine.

“Our legacy didn’t end with fentanyl,” states his AI-generated alter ego.

Marmolejo’s teenage sister, Erika Gaitan, described him as funny, outgoing and a great listener. She feels this campaign will certainly impact other teens, and plans to show the video to Marmolejo’s 4-year-old child.

“They’re hearing his story, what happened to him,” Gaitan said. “They’re seeing that, he can’t tell that because it already happened to him.”

For Lucas, traditional anti-drug campaigns were being ignored by younger generations, who think getting pills from family members can’t be lethal. He said it’s important to have the faces of those who directly impacted by fentanyl to get the message across.

“What we don’t do is meet each person. We don’t get to see their life recreated,” Lucas said. “I think that shows us pain in a very real, connecting and different way. It is rare as mayor that I get touched by things, and I think it was hard not to see those videos, and for a moment at least, to have been arrested in saying, ‘My God, this is a kid with a lot ahead of them.’ It was tragic to hear the words when they talked about their own passing.”

‘A Kansas City idea’

According to S&P Global, cities around the world use AI for a variety of uses, including video surveillance, public transportation improvement and government service portals. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that provides media information for families, reported 51% of people ages 14 to 22 use AI, but only 4% use it on a daily basis.

Lucas said the city followed their own blueprint, and worked with the health department and Barkley to create this campaign that will be blitzed across social media.

“This is a Kansas City idea,” Lucas said. “There is a plan to have paid advertisements, to have real engagement, to have influencers on Tiktok, on Instagram, on the spaces where young people are. This will not just be the sort of story that is government puts up one billboard somewhere, although you’ll see those too. It’s, instead, us recognizing we can’t keep doing the same thing.”

United Way president and CEO Chris Rosson also expressed the importance of meeting today’s teenagers where they are to make a lasting impact.

“My hope is that by having young people who are directly affected by this speak directly to young people using language that young people are fluent in, such as AI is a tactic that will be disproportionately effective in a way that other things happen,” Rosson said on the panel.

Anderson’s father, Brian Yocum, said the aim should be to make fentanyl look uncool. He compared the idea to how the “cool kids” in school influenced others around them to smoke cigarettes when he was younger.

“How do we make it a punchline to [take opioids],” he said. “If we can somehow do that,” it would be a huge help.”

More than 850 people in the Kansas City area have been killed by fentanyl since 2018, The Star found in its Deadly Dose series, investigating the ramifications of fentanyl in the community.

Yocum recommends expressing the dangers of drugs to children and teens repeatedly, even if they seem unreceptive, as her own child was.

Lucas hopes AI — seen as innovative by some, and controversial by others — can be the catalyst to curb drug use in the city.

“We hope that that gives us a chance to get through and connect in a way, frankly, that we have never done in Kansas City government, or certainly haven’t done in my lifetime,” Lucas said.

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(Reporting by The Star’s Laura Bauer and Judy L. Thomas were used in this story.)

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