Candy-Like Rainbow Fentanyl Pills Plague Southern California
Rainbow fentanyl pills that look like children’s candy are plaguing Southern California and the United States. The deadly drugs are designed to pass for children’s candy. Rather than appearing like prescription medication, the Mexican cartels are making the pills look like a treat a child brings home from a Halloween outing. With Halloween just one month away, the danger to kids is real.
Indeed, Tarzana Treatment Centers (TTC) believe parents need to be aware of the danger. As a provider of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services for youth, TTC makes an effort to reach out to our communities. Hence, the goal is to raise awareness about potential dangers like rainbow fentanyl pills.
The Frightening Power of Rainbow Fentanyl Pills
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Given the strength of this hospital drug, initially designed for post-surgical recovery, fentanyl is now the number one contributor to fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses in the United States. In the harsh glare of fentanyl’s deadly potency, disguising the illegal pills as candy-like rainbow fentanyl is downright evil.
According to the Fentanyl Facts page on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, “Even in small doses, it can be deadly. Over 150 people die every day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Drugs may contain deadly levels of fentanyl, and you wouldn’t be able to see it, taste it, or smell it. It is nearly impossible to tell if drugs have been laced with fentanyl unless you test your drugs with fentanyl test strips.”
Wanting to help prevent rainbow fentanyl overdoses, TTC offers free community Narcan training. In a simple-to-use nasal spray formulation, Narcan can reverse a fentanyl overdose. Hence, countless fentanyl overdoses have been avoided thanks to this recovery drug. In addition, TTC distributes fentanyl test strips in our communities as well. In most cases, fentanyl test strips are the only way to know whether or not fentanyl is present in an illegal drug. The problem is that fentanyl contamination is so common. Thus, many of the rainbow fentanyl pills are not sold as fentanyl. Instead, the drug dealers marketing these pills say they are tranquilizers like Xanax or Valium.
Millions of Rainbow Fentanyl Pills in Southern California
In late September, in a single bust in Pasadena, the police seized over 328,000 fentanyl pills. According to a press release, it brings the seized total of fentanyl pills to over 700,000 with a portion being rainbow fentanyl pills. If hundreds of thousands of pills were seized by police in Pasadena, imagine how many fentanyl pills are still out there. In major studies, police estimate that they manage to confiscate – at the very most – ten to twenty percent of illegal drugs on the street.
Moreover, that statistic refers only to Pasadena. Pasadena had an estimated population of 142,000 people in 2020. Even when you subtract that population, Los Angeles County has a population of over ten million people. Imagine how many fentanyl pills there are in Los Angeles County. It is hard to guess, but it’s a safe estimate that there are millions of fentanyl pills in Southern California. With that many pills, drug dealers are willing to sell them in any form and with any name, including to kids. Thus, the rainbow fentanyl pills added into a terrifying mix.
Given the dangers, TTC is here to help. From medications for addiction treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder to traditional SUD treatment services, we know how to help people recover from the disease of addiction. Moreover, we are doing what we can to help our communities battle opioid use disorder. TTC stays vigilant on the front lines by raising awareness and offering free training and recovery tools. With fentanyl pills, including the rainbow variation, everywhere, the stakes are higher than ever.