CLINICAL ISSUES :: FENTANYL
Hidden fentanyl: A harrowing holiday reminder
By Rorie Madigan, MT(ASCP)
every day, seemingly innocent candy exchanges become a real threat? At Kindergarten Meet the Teacher Night, my 5-year-old daughter accepted a piece of candy from another little girl, put it in her mouth, and then tried to hide it from me because she knew I wouldn’t want her eating candy I didn’t buy her. What should be a harmless childhood rite of passage at best, or an inconvenient sugar high at worst, suddenly has the potential to be deadly. In September of 2022, the United States Drug Enforcement
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Administration (DEA) seized 15,000 “rainbow fentanyl” pills in New York City concealed in a LEGO box, and 40% of them contained lethal doses.1
That same month, the Pasadena
Police Department seized more than 300,000 fentanyl pills, included among them were the rainbow fentanyl pills. And in Wethersfield, CT, two men were arrested attempting to sell rainbow fentanyl pills hidden in Nerds candy boxes and Skittles candy bags. The undercover DEA agents found thousands of brightly colored fentanyl pills hidden in candy boxes inside the dealer’s car. Whether the rainbow fentanyl pills are being pushed to
children or not, they are made to look like something a child may want to try. According to New York’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan, “Using happy colors to make a deadly drug seem fun and harmless is a new low, even for the Mexican cartels. Fentanyl is already involved in more than 80% of overdose deaths in the city. If you take any drug sold on the street or through the internet, regardless of its medicinal markings or festive appearance, you risk your life.”1
The jury is still out on whether a drug dealer would give away their product for free just to target children, as
20 DECEMBER 2022
MLO-ONLINE.COM
hether to accept and eat candy is a widely known quandary children face. It’s the predictable caution- ary tale to avoid strangers. But what happens when
this would negatively impact their profit and bottom line. Some believe the rainbow pills are a tactic by cartels to avoid detection by law enforcement. To not get caught up in the “why” debate, lets instead focus
on what we know with certainty is plaguing our communities daily — odorless, colorless, and tasteless fentanyl, concealed in fake oxycodone pills, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, metham- phetamine, and others. Drug dealers have figured out that illicitly produced fentanyl is cheap and easy to manufacture. In addition, fentanyl is highly potent and addictive, which is why we’re seeing an increase in fentanyl contamination of the street drug supply. It is being added to many different drugs to turn recreational users into addicted customers. In some cases, individuals are not even aware they have taken fentanyl, and those that are, are playing a very dangerous game.2
From April 2021 to April 2022, synthetic opioids
like fentanyl, were responsible for nearly 90% of reported deaths, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.3
Fast forward to September
2022, where now fake oxycodone pills have evolved into pills disguised as candy.
The case for fentanyl testing Being in the drug testing field, I am acutely aware of the dangers associated with opioid use. As a result of the evolving fentanyl contamination issue, two questions come to mind: 1. If someone unknowingly takes fentanyl and they are lucky enough to wake up in an emergency department (ED) post- treatment, how does the hospital, patient, and/or the patient’s family know that fentanyl was the reason for this overdose? The patient may admit to using whatever drug they thought they purchased but won’t know that the added fentanyl is what sent them to the ED, unless testing is performed.
Photo credit: DEA
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