By TOM LATEK, Kentucky Today
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) – The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, including its Louisville office, issued a rare Public Safety Alert on Monday, warning Americans of an alarming increase in the lethality and availability of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine.
DEA’s Public Safety Alert, the first in six years, seeks to raise public awareness of a significant nationwide surge in counterfeit pills that are mass-produced by criminal drug networks in labs, deceptively marketed as legitimate prescription pills, and are killing unsuspecting Americans at an unprecedented rate.
The DEA says they have seized these counterfeit pills in every state, and in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, more than the last two years combined. DEA laboratory testing reveals a dramatic rise in the number of counterfeit pills containing at least two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered a lethal dose. A deadly dose of fentanyl is small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil.
Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms, making them available to anyone with internet access, including minors.
“The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before. In fact, DEA lab analyses reveal that two out of every five fake pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose.”
Special Agent in Charge Todd Scott, the head of the DEA’s Louisville Division, warned, “Unless you’re taking a pill given to you by a pharmacist or a physician, you’re playing Russian roulette. “We’re seeing too many folks get a hold of pills they don’t even know are counterfeit, often with tragic results.”
Most counterfeit pills brought into the United States are produced in Mexico, and China is supplying chemicals for the manufacturing of fentanyl in Mexico.
The DEA says drug traffickers are using fake pills to exploit the opioid crisis and prescription drug misuse in the United States, bringing overdose deaths and violence. According to the CDC, more than 93,000 people died of a drug overdose in the United States last year. Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid most commonly found in counterfeit pills, is the primary driver of the increase in overdose deaths. Drug poisonings involving methamphetamine, increasingly found to be pressed into counterfeit pills, also continue to rise as illegal pills containing methamphetamine become more widespread.
The legitimate prescription supply chain is not impacted, they add. Anyone filling a prescription at a licensed pharmacy can be confident that the medications they receive are safe when taken as directed by a medical professional.
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September 28, 2021 at 01:41AM
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DEA issues warning about counterfeit pills - Kentucky Today
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