Counterfeits Kill: Fentanyl Facts Lives Depend On

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Transcript

[Stefanie Turner, Founder, Texas Against Fentanyl:]

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is found in pressed pills as well as added to other street drugs.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

Two milligrams is a lethal amount of fentanyl, which is comparable to two or three grains of salt.

Of all pills that were seized by the DEA in 2022, 99 percent of them tested positive for fentanyl.

[Woman, Unidentified:]

Ninety-nine percent. So if you’re buying a pill off the streets, you should know that you’re gambling with your life.

You can’t see it. You can’t taste it. You can’t smell it. And it is in everything.

[Dr. Todd Akins, Medical Director, Brushy Creek Family Hospital:]

If you’re getting anything from a friend, off the street—it’s got fentanyl in it.

[Turner:]

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death among 18 to 45-year-olds.

You have a higher chance of dying from fentanyl than in a car accident.

[Sheriff Mike Gleason, Williamson County, Texas:]

This is a drug that I’ve never seen in my career that will kill you graveyard dead the first time, and you didn’t even know what you were taking.

[Turner:]

Where does fentanyl come from? It comes from China where it’s shipped to Mexico…

[Woman, Unidentified:]

And the cartels are making the products, and it’s being smuggled over to the United States.

[Turner:]

The drug demographic has completely changed.

All drugs are being poisoned by fentanyl.

Fentanyl is highly addictive, and it’s highly lethal.

[Woman, Unidentified:]

So the faster they can get you addicted, and it’s a quicker low, you’re going to buy more in the process.

[Turner:]

Fentanyl is often sold on social media, such as Snapchat and Instagram.

Other apps, such as Signal and Telegram, are often used to help distribute fentanyl.

The effects of fentanyl can include nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, confusion, changes in pupil size, and respiratory depression, which can lead to death.

[Dr. Akins:]

So people are dying is because it causes respiratory depression, and the amounts they’re getting and actually when you’re getting too much it’s respiratory arrest.

[Turner:]

Fentanyl is often found in press pills. These pills are made to look like other pharmaceutical medications.

[Dr. Akins:]

I mean these people can can put out 30,000 pills a day with the machine in there in their apartment pressing pills.

You know, they’re just putting scoops of fentanyl powder into a big mixing bowl. So you don’t know… one pill may be straight fentanyl powder, the other one may have no fentanyl powder.

And that’s the big danger.

That’s why we see kids taking one pill and they’re dead.

[Dr. Jordan Adams, Bluebonnet Trails Community Service:]

And that’s the scary part about it is, even if you’re you know trying to get a medication from your friend that you know and you trust, you don’t know where they got it from, who gave it to them, and you really just don’t know what you’re taking.

[Sheriff Gleason:]

This is a very unforgiving drug and you never get a second chance.

That’s, that’s the reality of life.

Actually, that’s the reality of death.