Aimee Teel says her son, Tomasso Dino, didn’t die as a result of the drug addiction he was fighting to overcome. He was poisoned.
In fact, he was just in the area back in 2024 for a family visit before embarking on a trip to Colorado to start a new, fresh chapter in his life. He’d been in recovery for two years after a cycle of drug use, legal troubles, and times of clarity and normalcy.
Tomasso met up with friends and never came home. He was found unresponsive and slipped into a coma before succumbing on Feb. 28, 2024, to what his mother says was drug poisoning.
“Tomasso didn’t die from his past struggles with addiction. His life was abruptly and cruelly taken by Illicit substance poisoning,” Teel said at an event Thursday evening in the Cressona Mall parking lot.
Teel organized a gathering in the Cressona Mall parking lot Thursday to help debut a large billboard that displays along Route 61 called Faces of Tragedy.
The Faces of Tragedy billboard features the pictures of 15 Schuylkill County residents who’ve lost their lives to drugs. There are several different billboard images and they’ll be on display through July 30.
Teel says when people drive by and see the billboard, “I want them to realize what the drug epidemic is taking from us.”
At Thursday’s gathering that was attended by about 200 people, family and friends of many of the faces that are featured in the billboard campaign were on hand to share their memories of their loved ones and show support for others whose lives have been impacted by what they’re calling a drug epidemic here.
Teel says her son was given a substance that was laced with fentanyl.
“He would have never knowingly taken something that would end his life. He was given that substance unbeknownst to him,” Teel says.
She blames the people her son was with that night for contributing to her son’s death. Teel says they left Tomasso without an ID and no wallet.
“While I would never wish this pain on anyone, a part of me hopes that those involved might one day understand the gravity of the actions and the devastation that they left behind,” Teel says. “I hope that they see this billboard, that they see Tomasso’s face and that his memory truly haunts them.
Holding an urn that contains Tomasso’s ashes, Teel says, “That urn … that’s all I have physically left of him now. He was 25 years old. He had his whole life ahead of him.”
Teel’s daughter and Tomasso’s sister, Lexie, shared with the crowd on Thursday how her life has been affected by sudden loss she suffered last year.
“In an instant, it was all ripped away. That single, horrific moment, a choice made by others stole my brother. The immediate sickening realization that he was gone because of a substance he never knowingly chose to take is a truth that will forever haunt me,” Lexie said.
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S.T. Oner
July 7, 2025 at 7:37 am
This tragedy is exactly why we must urgently legalize and regulate marijuana.
Tomasso Dino wasn’t a failure—he was poisoned by a chaotic and unsafe underground market that exists because we’ve criminalized safer alternatives. Legal cannabis could have offered him pain relief, anxiety reduction, and therapeutic support without the lethal risk of fentanyl-laced street drugs. When families like the Teels grieve, they’re not just mourning a person—they’re mourning a policy failure.
Marijuana legalization isn’t about indulgence; it’s about harm reduction, public health, and human dignity. Every overdose like this is a reminder that regulation saves lives, while prohibition only preserves pain.