"Pass the Trash"

Matt Robinson's resignation as superintendent comes at a questionable time. Cameron School District will be better off without him, but they shouldn't pass the trash to another school.

Oct 07, 2025

The Global Fentanyl Pipeline: From China to Cameron High School

The path of fentanyl is well-documented by federal law enforcement. Chemical companies in China—often small, family-based operations—produce and export precursor chemicals to Mexican drug cartels, primarily the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). These Chinese suppliers openly advertise on the internet and provide the cartels with both the chemicals and recipes for manufacturing fentanyl.

When China banned finished fentanyl production in 2019, Chinese companies switched to producing and selling fentanyl precursors—the ingredients needed to manufacture the drug. These precursors are shipped to clandestine laboratories in Mexico where cartels synthesize fentanyl at an industrial scale, often using sophisticated equipment, including laboratory-grade glassware and industrial-size tablet presses.

The economics are staggering: it costs as little as 10 cents to produce a fake prescription pill laced with fentanyl, which can be sold for $10-$30. Ten kilos of fentanyl is worth about $20 million, but only costs about $50,000 to produce. In 2021 alone, the cartels made an estimated $13 billion from human trafficking and smuggling.

Fentanyl doesn’t respect boundaries. It flows from Chinese chemical plants through Mexican cartel laboratories, across the U.S. border, through major cities, and into small communities like Cameron, Missouri. The cartels have seized operational control of the Southwest border, and drugs and violence are engulfing communities across the country, hundreds of miles from the border.

The cartels use multiple criminal enterprises to fund their operations, including not just drug trafficking but also human trafficking and sex trafficking. MS-13 forces women and girls into sex trafficking to make money for the gang.

Small communities pay the ultimate price for this drug war. Some school districts have seen multiple fentanyl overdose deaths, with school buildings displaying posters in hallways memorializing students who have died. Major cities have become desolate landscapes of fentanyl folders in scenes from a hellish nightmare. Yet fentanyl doesn’t have boundaries—China and Mexico may, but this drug doesn’t. It doesn’t respect school campuses. It doesn’t respect police departments. And it certainly doesn’t respect superintendents who choose to look the other way.

Creator: Stephen Lam | Credit: The Chronicle Copyright: San Francisco Chronicle

When Heath Gilbert and Dan Landi reported fentanyl sales at Cameron High School, they were reporting a local manifestation of a global crisis—one link in a chain that stretches from Chinese chemical factories, through Mexican cartel laboratories, across international borders, and into the hands of teenagers in a small Missouri town. Every failure to investigate, every missing police report, every administrator who chose silence over action, allowed that pipeline to continue operating unimpeded.

The National Crisis Context

While Cameron School District officials were receiving reports about fentanyl at Cameron High School, a national crisis was unfolding. In 2022, an average of 22 adolescents aged 14-18 died each week from drug overdoses across the United States—the equivalent of a high school classroom every week. The death rate for this age group had risen to 5.2 per 100,000, and fentanyl was involved in 76% of adolescent drug overdose deaths by 2023.

This wasn’t a secret. It was making national news. Schools across the country were grappling with multiple fentanyl deaths. The increase in adolescent overdose deaths was not due to more drug use—in fact, illicit drug use among teens had been declining for years. Instead, drugs had become deadlier due to fentanyl contamination in counterfeit pills that teens thought were legitimate prescription medications.

Against this backdrop of a well-documented national emergency, local reports about fentanyl at Cameron High School should have triggered immediate action from both school officials and law enforcement.

August 2024: Gilbert Reports to School Officials (Edited: Updated Year to 2024 from 2023)

Approximately a year before the board would first learn of the issue, Heath Gilbert spoke to school officials, including Superintendent Matt Robinson, about fentanyl at Cameron High School. This meeting occurred in August 2024 with Dan Landi present. Gilbert provided information about fentanyl sales on school property, requested a police report from Officer Palmer regarding “fencing of stolen goods to pay for marijuana and the sale and use of fentanyl on school property,” and shared details about a student involved, including social media account information where deals were allegedly being made.

August 2025: The Board Finally Learns (Edited: Updated Year to 2025 from 2024)

In August 2025—one year after Gilbert’s report to Robinson—Dan Landi spoke to the Cameron School Board about the drug problems at Cameron High School, including fentanyl sales. Video evidence from this board meeting shows this was the first time the board was learning this information.

In talking to the Cameron Police Department, Gilbert and Landi learned that neither the police department nor school officials had informed the elected representatives of the Cameron school district of this critical information for approximately one year.

Video evidence: August 2024 board meeting

October 2024: Continued Drug Activity

Multiple incidents of drug use within the school, including marijuana, were reported to the school district in October 2024. The drugs appeared to be sold in the school and passed along, bypassing the security checks of school bags according to student reports.

At the October 2024 board meeting, Gilbert publicly mentioned that kids were smoking marijuana inside the school. After the meeting, School Resource Officer Johnny Ward approached Gilbert, upset about these claims. Ward was reportedly unaware of drug incidents that had been reported to school administrators, raising questions about internal communication between school officials and law enforcement.

When Gilbert and Landi spoke with the police, the reports were returned to the school resource officer to investigate.

Video evidence: October 2024 board meeting

Legal Authority and Responsibility

Under Missouri law, the Cameron Police Department has the legal authority to investigate felonies, including the sale and distribution of fentanyl and marijuana on school property. School resource officers, while employed by the school district, work under the jurisdiction of the police department for criminal matters.

School officials have a legal responsibility to report crimes to law enforcement so that proper police reports can be generated. The sale and distribution of fentanyl on school property is a felony offense that requires formal police investigation and documentation.

Missing Police Reports

When Gilbert initially reported the fentanyl issue to Superintendent Robinson in August 2023, he requested the police report from Officer Palmer regarding “fencing of stolen goods to pay for marijuana and the sale and use of fentanyl on school property.” The report should have existed in August 2024.

However, when Gilbert filed a records request with the Cameron Police Department for this report, he discovered it did not exist. Gilbert confirmed through his records request that the Cameron Police Department had no cases originating from the district on this matter. This raised a critical question: if school officials knew about felony drug activity on school property, why had the Cameron Police Department not been formally notified to generate proper police reports?

The Missing Investigation

It is essential to ask: what happened to the police report? This represents a potential dereliction of duty by both the Cameron Police Department and the Sheriff’s office to protect students by failing to take seriously the reports by Gilbert and Landi about drugs in the high school.

The failure to act is even more troubling given the national context. By the time Gilbert and Landi were making their reports in 2023 and 2024, fentanyl deaths among adolescents were a major national news story. Every education and law enforcement professional in the country should have been aware of the crisis. Matt Robinson, as superintendent, and the Cameron Police Department had access to the same national data showing that 22 teenagers were dying every week from fentanyl overdoses—often from counterfeit pills obtained through social media, exactly as Gilbert had described.

Yet despite both local reports with specific details and a national crisis making headlines, these officials chose to ignore the warnings.

Gilbert was aware of the drug activity because of the legal troubles of a family member. Landi, a former officer with the Missouri Highway Patrol, brought professional law enforcement experience to his concerns. Both men felt they had a moral obligation to inform the school and the police department about felony drug activity that endangered children.

Yet neither agency—both of which answer to the taxpayer—took their concerns seriously, even with evidence and testimony provided.

This failure calls to mind an important principle in child protection: when a child is abused in the school system, we have outside agencies that investigate because we learned the hard lesson that schools won’t investigate themselves but will “pass the trash.” The same logic should apply to felony drug activity. When parents and concerned citizens report serious crimes on school property, law enforcement agencies outside the school’s control must conduct proper investigations.

February 2025: Official Documentation Emerges

In February 2025, an official Cameron Police Department incident report was finally generated (Report #2025-0137, dated February 28, 2025). This report documented what Gilbert and Landi had been reporting for over a year: marijuana and fentanyl were present at Cameron High School.

The police report detailed students smoking marijuana in bathrooms and vaping THC products in classrooms. Students had developed methods to hide evidence and avoid detection, including hiding vapes in hoodie sleeves and exhaling into the fabric. The report specifically mentioned that students were obtaining products from another student whose family member worked at a dispensary.

Most significantly, the report documented that fentanyl in pill form was being obtained and passed at the high school, with transactions conducted through social media—exactly as Gilbert had reported to school officials over a year earlier.

The District’s Response

Following Gilbert’s reports about fentanyl, the Cameron School District modified its random drug testing policy to include fentanyl as a testing option. Previously, the district did not test for this substance. This policy change suggests the district was aware of the fentanyl issue and took at least some administrative action—yet questions remain about why law enforcement was not properly engaged to investigate felony drug distribution.

September 2025: Superintendent Robinson’s Resignation

On September 2 and 3, 2025, Superintendent Matt Robinson signed official letters restricting both Dan Landi and Heath Gilbert from attending board meetings and communicating with district staff. These restrictions effectively silenced the two men who had been reporting fentanyl distribution at Cameron High School and who had previously opposed sexually explicit materials in the school library.

Fourteen days later, on September 17, 2025, Robinson publicly announced his resignation, effective June 30, 2026—the end of the school year. This would allow him to leave the district in good standing with the hope of finding another superintendent position elsewhere.

The sequence of events raises serious questions about Robinson’s motives and actions:

Robinson’s Pattern of Silence: According to Gilbert and Landi’s accounts, Robinson did not appear to inform the Board of Education about their detailed reports of fentanyl sales and distribution on school property. Instead, he used his administrative authority to prevent them from addressing the board directly about these felony drug activities.

Possible Retaliation: One could argue that Robinson restricted Gilbert and Landi’s access to the board, not because of legitimate safety concerns, but because they had been vocal opponents of sexually explicit materials in the school library and had exposed other district problems. The fentanyl reports may have been the final issue Robinson wanted to keep quiet.

Timing of the Resignation: Gilbert had addressed the Cameron City Council about what he characterized as a cover-up of fentanyl in the school. In an email dated September 26, 2025, Gilbert stated about his city council address and his email to the board about Robinson’s handling of fentanyl: “This and the email I will forward are likely what caused his forced resignation.”

The question remains: Did Robinson resign voluntarily, or was he pressured to leave once the board learned he had been keeping critical safety information from them while simultaneously silencing the people trying to report it?

Video evidence: City Council address

Additional Context: Assistant Principal Lannigan’s Role

According to Gilbert’s account, Assistant Principal Derek Lannigan initially contacted him about a foster child suspected of smoking marijuana in the bathroom. Lannigan informed Gilbert about drug use in the school, which is how Gilbert obtained some of his information. The foster child later admitted to marijuana use and explained how students hid evidence and vaped in classrooms.

However, when Gilbert later spoke with Lannigan during an October back-to-school event about Officer Ward’s lack of knowledge regarding the bathroom incident, this raised questions about why information reported to school administrators was not being shared with the school’s own police officer. Gilbert states he has this conversation recorded on video.

Key Questions Raised

What information did Superintendent Robinson receive and when?
What actions were taken by the district after receiving reports of fentanyl?
Why was the school resource officer apparently unaware of reported drug incidents?
Was the Cameron Police Department formally notified of felony drug activity on school property?
What is the timeline of the drug testing policy changes?
Did Robinson resign voluntarily, or did the board pressure him once they learned critical information had been withheld?