About Us

The Daniel Calazans Foundation is a non-profit organization to address substance abuse and mental health crises. It amplifies how certain physical conditions may be interconnected instead of being separate issues.

For example, depression and anxiety can be symptoms of hormonal or inflammatory illnesses instead of the primary conditions, and how mental issues and physical illness can both foster substance abuse.

Comprehensive assessment of the patient must include evaluations for possible related issues as integral parts of the patient’s treatment plan. Unfortunately, misdiagnosis happens often, leading to unnecessary or inadequate drug therapies. 

Scientific studies have shown that the overuse of prescription drugs increases the rate of drug abuse and suicidal ideation. Prescription medications may work well to treat many medical conditions, but some drugs, especially for mental health or pain, can carry a risk of dependence and misuse.

Unfortunately, in this country, prescription drugs are over-prescribed at alarming rates, including antibiotics, but especially drugs for pain and mood disorders, which is often where substance abuse starts. 

DCF carries part of Danny’s full name: Daniel Calazans Simoes. The fact that we named this initiative using Daniel’s second last name was part of his last request. Danny wanted pay a tribute to his maternal grandfather, a solid and decent 104 years-old man, who remarkably impacted Daniel’s life.

DCF carries Danny’s maternal as part of Daniel’s request to honor his maternal grandfather’s last name, who is now 104 years old and had a remarkable positive impact on Danny’s life.

As the adage goes – the difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. 

The World Health Organization recommends “reducing drug use in general in the community” as the fundamental approach to preventing opioid overdose. 

Our Story

DCF raises awareness and helps families and patients make better-informed decisions when seeking help to treat substance abuse and mental health. We want other families to know what we didn’t know in time to save Daniel’s life.
Lack of information compromises early diagnosis and decreases the intervention success rate. In addition, it is difficult for families to navigate this crisis when a family member becomes sick.

The Reality

We are experiencing an insidious attack on young people in the United States. Fentanyl and other opioids are the leading cause of death for the ages 18 to 25, killing 175 young Americans every day – one every 8 minutes.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death between the ages of 10 to 24 years old. Suicide kills 125 young Americans every day – one every 11 minutes.

The ones who survive substance abuse and mental health crises often live with chronic illnesses, compromising their well-being forever. Add to that the families of those lost and devastated following such a tragedy.

A Generation at Risk

DCF focuses on Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012. Zoomers, ranging from middle school students to early professionals, report higher rates of anxiety and depression, more than any other age group, according to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

The decline in mental health predisposes this age group to riskier behaviors, like substance abuse, especially pharmaceutical pills. Teenagers and young adults believe that prescription drugs are safer than “street drugs” for various reasons, including that “these are medicines.” So, the initiation often starts with their doctors and dentists.

Substance abuse of prescription pills leads to sourcing drugs from black-market suppliers when prescribed medications run out. For example, according to the DEA, most deaths from fentanyl involve an intention of buying a prescription pill such as Xanax, Adderall, or Percocet.

Avoiding unnecessary prescription pills represents a fundamental first step to preventing deaths by fentanyl poisoning.

How We Help

Our work involves three areas of activism in the public arena:

  1. Raising awareness helps families and patients make better-informed decisions when seeking ways to treat mental health and substance abuse.
  2. Advocating for programs to decrease pharmaceutical pills use,
  3. Lobbying lawmakers to eliminate fentanyl sales from social media platforms,
  4. Debating regulations to qualify drug treatment centers as medical facilities to improve outcomes. 

Our dedicated team knows that comprehensive diagnoses can save lives and improve the well-being of survivors of addiction illnesses. But we can only advocate for effective treatments by being better informed and supporting the underfunded system that struggles to treat the millions of Americans suffering and dying because of the complexity of treating substance abuse, mental health, and their related medical conditions. 

We invite you to join us in this essential work to save lives.

Contact Us

Have questions about our organization, our work, or how you can get involved? We’d love to hear from you.

Reach Out

The Daniel Calazans Foundation website is only possible because of the generosity of our donors, who believed in our cause since our first baby steps. To all of them listed below and those who have helped anonymously our sincere and infinite gratitude.

Richard Avalos
John Balbach
Adriano Borges
Jon Crane
Michael Evans
Peter Fowler
Ronaldo and Salete Garcia
Pedro Gusmao
Lisa Kammerer 
Nat Kendall 
Marion Kregeloh 
David Landis 
Michelle Leopold
 

Natalia Lima 
Jeff Loomis
Yan Michalevsky
George Montgomery
Tara-Nicholle Nelson
Rex and Mercedes Northern
James O’Neill
Michelle Royall 
Romina Rozensztajn
Rebecca Schaefer
Jed Smith
Dr. Neil Stolleman
Erika Valença

The Daniel Calazans Foundation would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance in launching the foundation:

Alyssa Ruehle, Novato, CA, for her assistance with copywriting. Thank you.
Sergiy Moroz, Kyiv, Ukraine, for his hard work with video editing. Slava Ukraini.