5k run in Camilla set to raise awareness of drug ‘more dangerous than fentanyl’

CAMILLA – Nitazenes is not a word that is in most people’s vocabulary. The synthetic opioid that officials say can be many times more potent than fentanyl just showed up on the radar of law enforcement about seven years ago after initially popping up in overdose deaths in the Midwest.

Like fentanyl, nitazenes are a synthetic opioid. But while fentanyl has some medical uses, nitazenes were considered too risky and habit-forming for approval when  they were developed in the 1950s.

For a Gwinnett County family, the knowledge of nitazenes came at a high price when Marquavies Broughton became the first known overdose death from the drug in Georgia in April 2025. Broughton reportedly bought the substance thinking it was a prescription pain medication and died in his mother’s arms in Lawrenceville.

On Saturday, Cassenda Nelson is looking to bring awareness to the dangers of powerful opioids to the community with a 5k run/walk and community resource fair in Camilla. The event starts at 1 p.m. at 165 West Circle.

“He was the first,” Nelson said. “What is in Atlanta is going to come here. It’s (nitazenes) 800 times stronger than morphine. This can reach any family.”

Nelson formed the domestic violence nonprofit I&A Divyne Purpose in 2018, the year after her mother’s ex-boyfriend killed her mother, Frances Nelson, and aunt, Mamie Childs, in a domestic violence case.

“The person that committed that crime was on drugs,” Nelson said. “I wanted to spread this word about domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction in our community.”

Broughton’s mother, Frederica Roberson, is also holding an event on Saturday in Lawrenceville, she said.

Broughton, 21, had been sober for two months and reportedly relapsed, and the family had difficulties in accessing a treatment center that could immediately accept him on the day he died, Nelson said.

In interviews with news media, Roberson said that an Uber courier delivered pills that were purportedly Percocet but were laced with nitazenes.

“One death in Georgia is enough,” Nelson said. “We couldn’t prevent that one, but maybe we can save someone else. The reason for the walk is overdose prevention, education and support and for youth outreach.”