DEA warns of mass fentanyl overdoses

The Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday warned state, local and federal law enforcement officials of a nationwide spike in fentanylrelated “mass-overdose events” in which three or more fentanyl poisonings happen in rapid succession in the same location.

Fifty-eight people have overdosed and 29 people have died in recent months in mass fentanyl overdose incidents, the DEA said in a news release. The overdoses were reported in Wilton Manors, Fla.; Austin, Texas; Cortez, Colo.; Commerce City, Colo.; Omaha, Neb.; St. Louis; and Washington, D.C.

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said many of these victims “have no idea they are ingesting deadly fentanyl, until it’s too late.” Many of the victims believed they were ingesting cocaine, DEA officials said, adding that the highly addictive opioid can be pressed into pills and powders.

“Fentanyl is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate,” Milgram said. “Drug traffickers are driving addiction, and increasing their profits, by mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs.”

In the Bay Area, counties in recent years have recorded a rise in deaths, particularly among young people ages 18 to 25, after they ingested counterfeit pills made of fentanyl that are manufactured to look like prescription medication. Many young people who consume these counterfeit pills don’t know what they’re actually ingesting is made of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

DEA officials said that fentanyl is “driving the nationwide overdose epidemic,” citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that shows more than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in October 2021. Sixty-six percent of those deaths involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, DEA officials said.

Federal drug enforcement authorities said they are working to trace reported mass-overdose incidents back to drug traffickers in the local regions as well as international cartels that bring fentanyl over the southern border. Most of the fentanyl in the United States is manufactured by criminal networks outside of the country and sold domestically, according to the DEA.

In the first three months of the year, DEA officials said they seized 2,000 pounds of fentanyl and 1 million counterfeit pills. In 2021, DEA officials seized more than 15,000 pounds of fentanyl, “which is enough to kill every American,” DEA officials said.

The DEA’s warning issued Wednesday is an expansion of a warning the agency issued in September, where it warned people in the United States that there was a reported sharp increase in counterfeit prescription pills containing fentanyl.