DEA: Mexican-made fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills showing up on Massachusetts streets

Mexican drug cartels are manufacturing mass quantities of fentanyl-laced, counterfeit prescription pills that are killing Americans and showing up on Massachusetts streets, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“We’ve seized hundreds of thousands of pills in the southwest and seen an uptick in counterfeit pills being laced with fentanyl,” a synthetic opioid that is lethal in doses as small as 2 milligrams, the equivalent weight of a few grains of salt, Special Agent Timothy Desmond said Monday. “Unless it came from your doctor or pharmacist, it could contain fentanyl.”

Based on a sampling of tablets seized from traffickers and street dealers nationwide from January to March of this year, the DEA found that 27% contained fentanyl.

In Massachusetts, agents examined 6 different samples of the suspected Mexico-made tablets carrying between 0.6 and 1.2 mg of fentanyl per tablet, according to an unclassified report by the DEA.

“Capitalizing on the opioid epidemic and prescription drug abuse in the United States, drug trafficking organizations are now sending counterfeit pills made with fentanyl in bulk to the United States for distribution,” DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon said in a statement Monday. “Counterfeit pills that contain fentanyl and fentanyl-laced heroin are responsible for thousands of opioid-related deaths in the United States each year.”

Fentanyl and other highly potent synthetic opioids remain the primary drivers behind the ongoing opioid crisis in the U.S., with fentanyl involved in more deaths than any other illicit drug, according to the DEA.

Phil Lahey, a Methuen father of a heroin addict who has been sober for 11 years, said some addicts actually seek out fentanyl because they’re “chasing the high.”

“Fentanyl is cheap to make,” Lahey said, “and the addicts are really drawn to it.”

In June, Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes and other law enforcement officers went with DEA agents to clandestine laboratories in Mexico, where drugs were mixed with fentanyl to be smuggled across the border into the United States.

“When you mix these drugs, you can get something with no fentanyl in it, or you can get something that would kill you in a second,” said Kyes, president of the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs of Police. “And the United States is driving the demand.”

Doctors increasingly are under pressure to prescribe fewer or no opioids whatsoever. So many addicts are turning to street dealers, who are selling what they claim to be prescription drugs such as Oxycodone, Percocet and Xanax, often at a lower price than what pharmacies charge, Desmond said.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2pGC4bU