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Honored Contributor
Posts: 9,877
Registered: ‎12-22-2013

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages


@Porcelain wrote:

Well done, Federal DEA! Law enforcement is on a roll! Roll them all up.


They are talking about this in Reno too.  I just texted my granddaughter and told her not to take candy from anyone

Respected Contributor
Posts: 4,986
Registered: ‎10-04-2015

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages

Aug 10 2022

ABS-CBN News 

Forever 16: America's teens succumbing to deadly fentanyl 

 

Forever 16: America's teens succumbing to deadly fentanyl | ABS-CBN News

 

"The Faces of Fentanyl" wall, which displays photos of Americans who died from a fentanyl overdose, at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on July 13, 2022.

 

 

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. - Makayla Cox, a high school student in the  state of Virginia, thought she was taking medication that her friend had procured to treat pain and anxiety.

 

Instead, the pill she took two weeks after her sixteenth birthday was fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin. It killed her almost instantly.

 

After watching a movie -- a prequel to "Harry Potter" -- with her mother Shannon one evening in January, Makayla appeared fine as she headed to her bedroom with her husky dog that often slept on her bed.

 
But when Shannon entered Makayla's room the next morning, she found her partially sitting up, perched against the headboard, orange fluid coming out of her nose and mouth.
 
"She was stiff. I shook her, I screamed her name, I called 911," Shannon told AFP. "My neighbors came over and did CPR, but it was too late. After that, I just don’t remember much."
 
America's opioid crisis has reached catastrophic proportions, with over 80,000 people dying of opioid overdoses last year, most of them due to illicit synthetics such as fentanyl -- more than seven times the number a decade ago.
 
"This is the most dangerous epidemic that we’ve seen," said Ray Donovan, chief of operations at the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). "Fentanyl is not like any other illicit narcotic, it’s that deadly  instantaneously."
 
And deaths are rising especially quickly among young people, who obtain counterfeit prescription drugs through social media. Unknown to them, the pills come either laced with or made of fentanyl.
 
In 2019, 493 American adolescents died of drug overdose, in 2021 that figure was 1,146.
 
Dealers seek teens via apps
Drug dealers reach adolescents on apps such as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and others, often using emojis as code. 
 
Oxycodone, an opioid, may be advertised as a half-peeled banana, Xanax, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, as a chocolate bar, and Adderall, an amphetamine that acts as a stimulant, as a train.
 
Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said the number of Americans doing drugs has largely stayed the same in recent years, but what changed is how deadly they've become.
 
One cup of heroin is equivalent to one teaspoon of fentanyl, and less than one gram can mean the difference between life and death.
 
"It takes very small quantities to be a poison that can stop somebody breathing," Compton told AFP in an interview. 
 
Most of the illicit fentanyl in the United States is manufactured by Mexican drug cartels in clandestine labs from chemicals shipped over from China.
 
Because fentanyl is much more potent, it takes much less of it to fill a pill, resulting in more supply and more profit to the cartels.
 
One kilogram of pure fentanyl can be purchased for up to $12,000, pressed into half a million of pills that will sell for up to $30 each, raking in millions of dollars, Donovan said. And it’s also much easier to smuggle in pill form.
 
Last year, the DEA seized 15,000 pounds (nearly seven tons) of fentanyl -- enough to kill every American. Four out of 10 seized pills contain lethal quantities of fentanyl.
 

SCV News | Aug. 21: DEA Recognizes National Fentanyl Prevention, Awareness  Day - SCVNews.com

Fentanyl Awareness

'One pill can kill' 

At the agency’s headquarters, a collection of photographs titled "Faces of Fentanyl" hangs in the hallway. It features dozens of portraits of people who recently lost their lives to fentanyl. One of them reads "Makayla. Forever 16."

 

An honor-roll student and a cheerleader, Makayla liked to paint, cuddle with her two huskies, Maize and Malenkai, and planned to go to university to study law, said her mother Shannon Doyle, 41, who works as a paralegal in a loan service firm.

 

Makayla had battled anxiety after her parents’ divorce, but things got worse during the pandemic.

 

Last summer she started a job at a water park, where she met a friend who introduced her to counterfeit prescription drugs.

 

The blue pills found in Makayla’s bed turned out to be 100 percent fentanyl. Police are investigating, but so far no arrests have been made.

 

"It used to be that when you were addicted to drugs you had five, 10, 15 years to try and get over your addiction and get the help and change your life," Shannon said at her house in Virginia Beach.  "You don't have that chance anymore." 

 

Last year the DEA launched a campaign called "One pill can kill" to raise awareness of the dangers of fentanyl, and there are efforts across America to make naloxone, a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose, more easily available, including in schools.

 

Makayla’s ashes are in her bedroom and Shannon still peeks into the room every morning and evening, like she did when her daughter was alive.

 

She started a foundation in Makayla's name to help prevent similar tragedies -- a way, she says, helps her cope with her grief.

 

 

Regular Contributor
Posts: 248
Registered: ‎06-26-2013

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages

Morning lover, Thanks for explaining this to some of the posters on here. Obviously their not watching real news.Druggies are not taking fentanyl to get high. It kills you instantly!

 

Not considered overdose either, it s poisioning!

Wake up America!

 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,776
Registered: ‎02-13-2021

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages

1. West Virginia

Five-Year Death Rate: 37.6 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 3,239

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Cabell County – 87.7 deaths per 100,000

 

2. New Hampshire

Five-Year Death Rate: 27.2 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 1,695

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Strafford County – 33.2 deaths per 100,000

 

3. Ohio

Five-Year Death Rate: 26.1 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 14,340

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Montgomery County – 50 deaths per 100,000

 

4. Rhode Island

Five-Year Death Rate: 23 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 1,205

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Kent County – 24.6 deaths per 100,000

 

5. Massachusetts

Five-Year Death Rate: 22.3 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 7,481

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Barnstable County – 36.6 deaths per 100,000

 

6. Maryland

Five-Year Death Rate: 21.4 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 6,563

County or Equivalent With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Baltimore city – 51.2 deaths per 100,000

 

7. Kentucky

Five-Year Death Rate: 20.9 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 4,428

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Harrison County – 60.1 deaths per 100,000

 

8. Connecticut

Five-Year Death Rate: 19.7 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 3,459

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Litchfield County – 25.4 deaths per 100,000

 

9. Maine

Five-Year Death Rate: 19.5 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 1,195

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Washington County – 39.9 deaths per 100,000

 

10. New Mexico

Five-Year Death Rate: 17.7 per 100,000

Total Opioid-Involved Deaths: 1,756

County With Highest Opioid-Involved Death Rate: Rio Arriba County – 80 deaths per 100,000

 

Alabama

District of Columbia (D.C.)

Florida

Montana

 

 

 https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/slideshows/10-states-hit-hardest-by-opioid-crisis

 

https://www.opioidtreatment.net/blog/states-with-highest-opioid-addiction-rates/
 




A Negative Mind ~ Will give you a Negative Life
Honored Contributor
Posts: 30,916
Registered: ‎05-10-2010

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages


@gertrudecloset wrote:

U.S. Citizen Consumers Fund Fentanyl Smuggling

U.S. consumer payments for illicit opioids ultimately fund fentanyl smuggling. Consumers pay retail dealers who pay wholesalers, and the cash is then transferred back in bulk cash form to Mexico. These funds are then used to pay smugglers to bring drugs back into the United States again. The best evidence indicates that about 99 percent of U.S. consumers of fentanyl (or products containing fentanyl) are U.S. citizens.[i] Noncitizens appear to be about 80 percent less likely to be fentanyl consumers than their share of the population would predict. Fentanyl smuggling is almost entirely conducted on behalf of U.S. citizen consumers. Of course, consumers would prefer much safer and legal opioids over illicit fentanyl, but the government has unfortunately forced them into the black market with few safe options.

 

U.S. Citizens Are Fentanyl Traffickers

Fentanyl is primarily trafficked by U.S. citizens. The U.S. Sentencing Commission publishes data on all federal convictions, which includes demographic information on individuals convicted of fentanyl trafficking. Figure 1 shows the citizenship status of fentanyl traffickers for 2018 to 2021. Every year, U.S. citizens receive the most convictions by far. In 2021, U.S. citizens accounted for 86.3 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions compared to just 8.9 percent for illegal immigrants.

 

https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-citizens-not-asylum-seekers

 

 

I guess the "fairy" must have removed this first time I posted (or maybe I didn't hit post)?  Dunno.....


 

         The truth hurts, people choose not to believe it.  Drugs flow into the US because there's a huge market for them.  

Regular Contributor
Posts: 248
Registered: ‎06-26-2013

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages

It s pouring over the open Southern border. It originates in China! We should be scared. 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,776
Registered: ‎02-13-2021

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages


@ollie5 wrote:

It s pouring over the open Southern border. It originates in China! We should be scared. 


Why should you be scared if you don't take this illicit street drug @ollie5 ?





A Negative Mind ~ Will give you a Negative Life
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,892
Registered: ‎03-20-2010

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages


@gertrudecloset wrote:

@ollie5 wrote:

It s pouring over the open Southern border. It originates in China! We should be scared. 


Why should you be scared if you don't take this illicit street drug @ollie5 ?


Guess you are of the opinion, "let them kill themselves".

 

Unfortunately this in not the only drug being brought through the boarder.  Perhaps you are fortunate enough not to have friends or family members who have drug problems.  Yet with drug use comes crime, that should be everyone's concern.

Someday, when scientists discover the center of the Universe....some people will be disappointed it is not them.
Regular Contributor
Posts: 248
Registered: ‎06-26-2013

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages

No I m not a drug user. Think about where it originates, covid didn't work well enough but this is killing 300 people a day, that s like a plane crash everyday.

 

 

 

 

Valued Contributor
Posts: 511
Registered: ‎07-09-2014

Re: Fentanyl Pills packaged as Skittles and Nerd candy packages

We should worry that some one could poison the food supplies with it !! Remember the tylenol poisonings years ago  ?  We have people shooting up churches and schools , it's just a matter of time for this stuff to end up in the food supplies !