The DEA has already seized brightly-colored fentanyl in 18 states so far this month, a a new trend the agency says drug traffickers are capitalizing on to drive young people to the deadly drug.
Fentanyl, a powerful opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, was responsible for 71,238 of the record 107,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States last year, according to the CDC.
The new brightly-colored fentanyl – which can come in pills, powder, and blocks that look like sidewalk chalk – is not more potent than the traditional form, but could be more attractive to young people, the DEA says.
"This trend appears to be a new method used by drug cartels to sell highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl made to look like candy to children and young people," the DEA said.
Customs and Border Protection officers in Arizona seized 625,000 fentanyl pills in five recent inspections, 12,000 of which were rainbow-colored, according to Michael Humphries, the port director for the Nogales port of entry for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Fentanyl is primarily brought across the southern border by two drug trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
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The dangerous opioid is also being found by law enforcement far from the border.
West Virginia law enforcement officials executed a search warrant last week in Morgantown and found a "large batch" of pills that were "multi-colored and stamped with M/30 like a conventional oxycodone pill," according to the US Attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Authorities in Portland, Oregon, raided a home earlier this month and found four grams of powdered rainbow fentanyl, in addition to 800 fentanyl pills, meth, heroin, and nine guns.
"Rainbow fentanyl—fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes—is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement on Tuesday.
