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Law Enforcement Officials Warn About Spread of “Rainbow Fentanyl”
Seizures of “rainbow fentanyl” across the US have spiked within the past week, driving law enforcement officials to issue public health alerts to residents in their jurisdictions.
Rainbow fentanyl is a colorful version of the illicit synthetic opioid that can be found in a pill form, resembling candy or powdered blocks that look like sidewalk chalk. Batches of rainbow fentanyl have been seized in Arizona, Oregon, California, and Washington, D.C. within the past week, including more than 15,000 pills at the Nogales Port of Entry in Arizona and 800 pills and 4 grams of multicolored powder during a search in Multnomah County, Oregon, according to a USA Today report.
Experts have differing theories as to why illicit drug manufacturers are producing brightly colored fentanyl. Some officials, including Michael W. Humphries, area director for the US Customs and Border Protection Port of Nogales, Arizona, and Placer County, California, District Attorney Morgan Gire have suggested in public statements that the appearance of rainbow fentanyl is designed to appeal to young people.
“To be clear, all fentanyl purchased on the street is deadly, no matter the color, shape, size, or form,” Gire wrote in a statement published on the Placer County District Attorney’s Office Facebook page. “Yet, we find this rainbow-colored substance is one of the many tools that dealers are using to make the poison appeal to our kids. Any form of narcotic that does not come from a doctor’s prescription could be lethal, but we want the community to know these multi-colored powders are one of the trends we are seeing in the fentanyl market.”
Others, including Claire Zagorski, coordinator of the University of Texas at Austin Pharmacy Addictions Research and Medicine Program, said that coloring is being added to fentanyl to help producers distinguish their products from competing criminal organizations, not to target youths.
“There is not a lot of money in targeting kids, and this idea that drug sellers are coming for our children is a very old one that’s been washed and repeated over the decades,” Zagorski told Vice News.
Illicit fentanyl in all forms has played a sizable and increasing role in the nation’s opiod overdose epidemic in recent years. According to provisional data released in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 107,622 individuals in the US died by drug overdose in 2021, a 15% year-over-year increase largely attributed to illicit fentanyl. The number of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl was 71,238, up from 57,834, according to the CDC.
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