‘Pawn Stars’’ Rick Harrison’s son Adam died of accidental overdose, officials confirm
Las Vegas officials revealed the cause of death for Adam Harrison, who died in January.
A representative for the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner confirmed to The Times on Friday that Harrison, the son of “Pawn Stars” personality Rick Harrison, died of fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity. His death was ruled an accident. One of the TV star’s three sons, Adam died on Jan. 19, 2024. He was 39.
The Las Vegas coroner confirmed Rick Harrison’s previous announcement that his son died of a fentanyl overdose. In a statement shared to TMZ via his rep, Harrison blamed the border crisis.
“Yes, I can confirm Adam died from a fentanyl overdose. The fentanyl crisis in this country must be taken more seriously. It seems it is just flowing over the borders and nothing is being done about it. We must do better.”
‘Pawn Stars’ Rick Harrison is blaming the border crisis for the death of his son Adam Harrison, who overdosed on fentanyl on Friday.
“You will always be in my heart! I love you Adam 💔,” he wrote in a January Instagram post mourning his son, who was not featured on the long-running reality TV series.
In 2023, drug overdose fatalities topped 112,000 for the first time in U.S. history, surpassing the devastation wrought by the crack cocaine crisis in the 1980s and the opioid epidemic of the early 2000s, NPR reported in December. Public health experts said that fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is responsible for a majority of those deaths.
In Los Angeles County alone, fentanyl was the cause of more than 60% of accidental drug or alcohol overdoses in 2022.
Illicit fentanyl — easier to transport in pill or powder form — is made abroad and smuggled over the southern border, but is majorly transported by U.S. citizens, the CATO Institute found in 2022. Border Patrol data showed that 91% of seizures in recent years at the border were from U.S. citizens.
Illicit imports of the opioid drug responsible for a fatal overdose crisis largely come from Mexico. But U.S. citizens bring most of it through legal ports of entry.
“The United States is in the midst of an unprecedented drug poisoning epidemic,” the DEA said in a statement earlier this week about the sale of fentanyl pills.
The statement added: “DEA will continue to use every tool at its disposal to help fight this drug poisoning and overdose crisis and to save American lives.”
Times staff writer Emily St. Martin contributed to this report.
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