Fentanyl remains the No. 1 cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. Just one kilogram of the synthetic drug can kill up to 500,000 people. But the silver lining of such tragic statistics is that deaths are down nationwide.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is actively raising awareness, and on Wednesday, the DEA Rocky Mountain Field Division in Salt Lake City held a press conference on National Fentanyl Awareness Day to showcase the ongoing fight against the drug and its traffickers in Utah.
Created from precursor chemicals that come from China, Rocky Mountain Field Division Assistant Special Agent in Charge Miguel Chino explained that the chemicals are then transported to Mexico, where drug cartels, namely the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Cartel, mix the chemicals to create fentanyl powder and pills.
“The cartels, who have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations, then use any means to flood the United States with fentanyl, which is a weapon of mass destruction,” he said. “We know members of these cartels right now are here in the state of Utah, working to spread drug poison in our communities, and they must be held accountable.”
Two million pills were seized in the state last year, setting a new record for the local drug enforcement agency. Chino said that in the first quarter of 2026, 204,000 pills were seized.
Melissa Holyoak, U.S. district attorney for the District of Utah, said that prosecutions against fentanyl offenders have increased in the last five years.
Her office had 60 cases involving fentanyl last year and is projected to have up to 100 cases this year. “We have had a number of indictments that have involved fentanyl totaling over 625,000 pills and 40 pounds of fentanyl powder, which is equivalent to 9 million lethal doses.”
Just last week, Holyoak’s office arrested a Mexican national who was in the country illegally, and “law enforcement recovered 225,000 pills,” she said. “Those pills were hidden in furniture, ready-to-build furniture, furniture panels.”
It costs cartels, on average, 1 to 3 cents to make a fentanyl pill, and the pills are sold on the streets of Salt Lake City for around $1-$5 depending on the amount bought, according to Chino.
He gave a demonstration of how these pills are created using a seized pill press that can create 4,000 pills in just one hour. Fentanyl is about 100 times more potent than morphine, while carfentanil — an opioid used to tranquilize elephants — is 10,000 times more potent. Chino said that during a recent drug seizure, their lab found that in the 2,000 pills confiscated, 70% were carfentanil.
Aside from law enforcement efforts to deter fentanyl trafficking in the state, Chino said it’s important to raise awareness and educating everyone, especially teenagers, that medication from licensed and accredited medical professionals is the only truly safe medication.
“One thing that we see cartels actually do (is) they mix fentanyl powder with other drugs, cocaine, marijuana,” Chino explained, because fentanyl is so addictive.
“They put it in Xanax pills. They put it all over, and so that’s the problem, and that’s why DEA has the campaign of ‘one pill can kill,’” he continued. “We need to have the conversation with family, friends, loved ones, anybody we know (that) you don’t take anything into your mouth medication-wise, pill-wise, unless it came from a doctor prescription and a pharmacy.”