City analysts find fentanyl in ecstasy

Authorities in Houston on Thursday warned that they have tested ecstasy pills that contained fentanyl, a powerful opioid blamed for a wave of overdoses and deaths elsewhere in the United States in recent years.

While analysts from the Houston Forensic Science Center have previously said they had found the drug in fake pharmaceuticals and powders, Thursday’s announcement marked the first time they’ve discovered it in pills marketed as ecstasy or other similar illicit drugs.

The news comes as some 80,000 people across the country died from drug overdoses last year, said Peter Stout, president of the forensic science center.

“Texas and Houston have traditionally over the last decades have had less of an opioid issue than other parts of the country,” Stout said. “I think there is a casualness about the concern, because we don’t really have an opioid issue. And people don’t think opioids, when they think of drug abuse problems in Texas, but this stuff here, it’s killing people here. … This isn’t off in Ohio Valley, this isn’t something that’s happened in Pennsylvania.”

In greater Houston, about 960 people died from overdose-related deaths in 2020, said Assistant Police Chief James Jones — 135 more than in 2019. Authorities said fentanyl has also played a greater role in those deaths. In 2019, for example, authorities tracked 104 fentanyl-related deaths. That number rose to

“People don’t think opioids, when they think of drug abuse problems in Texas, but this stuff here, it’s killing people here.” Peter Stout, president of the Houston Forensic Science Center

286 in 2020. In response, the Houston Police Department has tasked several officers with investigating overdoses and deaths, he said.

The squad, a four-person unit in the narcotics division, responds to non-fatal overdoses to attempt to direct victims to treatment, and investigate fatal overdoses to pursue cases against drug suppliers. So far this year, officers have filed charges in six cases and identified 30 other dealers they are pursuing cases against, he said.

“We are making a difference,” Jones said, acknowledging that the initial charges are “a drop in the bucket.”

“But it’s our attempt to actually address this problem.”

At the news conference, DEA Houston Associate Special Agent-in-Charge Erik Smith said Houstonbased agents have seized growing amounts of fentanyl in recent years. In 2019, for example, federal agents seized about 50 kilograms of fentanyl. Last year, that number had grown to 323 kilograms, and so far this year, agents have seized more than 200 kilograms.

Smith blamed the rise in fentanyl seizures on a flood of drugs from Mexico, synthesized from chemicals imported to Mexico from China.

“They see this as purely market share,” he said. “If you think about what that means … they’re getting rich, off of death.”

As authorities warned of a potential crisis, experts said it mirrored past warnings about other drugs that overdramatized problems associated with them.

When fentanyl first emerged on the national landscape, for example, many authorities reported claims about negative side effects or overdoses from accidental skin contact with a minuscule portion of the drug — something that experts say is virtually impossible.

Leo Beletsky, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who studies the health impact of laws and policing, said that much of the use of illicit fentanyl today can be traced to 2008 and 2009, when the federal government brought pressure to bear on opioid producers of drugs like oxycontin or hydrocodone. That pushed users toward heroin — and later, to fentanyl.

“We need to recenter science in how we approach problematic substance use,” he said.