Bright Colored Fentanyl Pills Designed To Look Like Candy
DEA Report
The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a warning Tuesday about brightly colored fentanyl pills being distributed across the country. These “rainbow fentanyl” pills mimic other illicit ones, but are made to look like candy and appeal to young people.
Drug cartels are manufacturing Illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is 50-to-100 times more potent than morphine, and combining it with other drugs. Just a few grains are deadly. Despite claims that certain colors may be more potent than others, there is no indication through DEA’s laboratory testing that this is the case. Every color, shape and size of fentanyl should be considered extremely dangerous. The new form of fentanyl was first detected in the U.S. earlier this month and has been seized in 18 states to date.
We scoured the internet and found this video to be the best at describing this dangerous new form of Fentanyl, where it is coming from, and how kids are getting their hands on it.
More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, 66% of which were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the CDC data. This was an increase from 2020, when there were 91,799 drug overdose deaths.
Youth (Age 15-24) drug-induced deaths:
Have tripled over 20 years, driven recently by Fentanyl involvement which has grown ~6X in 5 years (+491%).
Meanwhile, in the same 5 years, deaths from Meth, Cocaine, Heroin, Benzos, & Legit Opioids combined have been mostly flat (+11%).
Fentanyl is involved in more youth death than all other drug types combined; many deaths involve multiple drugs.
In 2021, ~7,000 youth will have died with fentanyl involved, accounting for 76% of all youth drug death.
14 & 17 year-olds have been more than twice as impacted by the growth in fentanyl death involvement over the last 5 years than all other ages.
If you think your child is using, focus the conversation on safety and drug use. Talk about how you as a parent or caregiver want them to be safe, instead of focusing on punishment for drug use. Contact CYS immediately and CYS can help you determine if they are using through drug testing as well as set up a plan to keep them safe through our JADE class. Do not “wait and see,” get help right away!
Most importantly, remind your teen they are not alone. Contact CYS today for more advice on how to talk to your teen, counseling and other services please call:
(949) 303.9016