The Drug Enforcement Administration released a warning about fentanyl pills sharing a similarity to popular candies on Monday.
NBC News reported that “rainbow fentanyl” pills are being used by drug cartels to get kids and young adults addicted. This new tactic of dealing drugs that look like candy is a threat in the ongoing opioid crisis, according to a warning issued by officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration on Monday.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said traffickers are hiding the pills by creating them in different shapes and sizes that mirror the looks of candies like Nerds and Skittles.
“This is another tactic that they’re using to get more fentanyl to more people,” Milgram said. “The more drugs they can sell, the more addiction they drive, the more profit they make.”
The DEA reported that fentanyl is the “deadliest drug threat facing this country,” and that it is “50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.”
NBC reported that “nearly 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, with 66% of those deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.”
While the opioid crisis has received less attention recently as health officials focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in overdose deaths caused by the drug have brought the topic of conversation back into the spotlight.
More than 100,000 people died of opioid overdoses from April 2020 to April 2021, according to CBS News.
“I read too many reports on too many cases, including too many young people who ended up dying after taking just one pill laced with fentanyl, often disguised as something else,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said, per CBS.
“Across the country, fentanyl is devastating families and communities, and we know that violent, criminal drug cartels bear responsibility for this crisis,” Garland said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Justice Department, including the extraordinary professionals of the DEA, is working to disrupt and dismantle the operations of these cartels, remove deadly fentanyl from our communities, and save Americans’ lives.”
Last year, the DEA launched the One Pill can Kill enforcement effort, according to Garland’s statement, which is intended “to combat the fake pill threat and educate the public about the dangers of fentanyl pills being disguised and sold as prescription medications, despite these pills not containing any of the actual medications advertised.”