US Drug Enforcement Administration Warns of Fake Prescription Pills With Fentanyl, Meth

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a warning to the public on Monday about an increasing number of fake pills with dangerous ingredients including fentanyl and meth.

ЭToday, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a Public Safety Alert warning Americans of the alarming increase in the lethality and availability of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine. DEA’s Public Safety Alert, the first in six years, seeks to raise public awareness of a significant nationwide surge in counterfeit pills that are mass-produced by criminal drug networks in labs, deceptively marketed as legitimate prescription pills, and are killing unsuspecting Americans at an unprecedented rate,” the DEA said.

The DEA said that they have seized fake pills of the aforementioned nature in all 50 states, totaling more than 9.5 million counterfeit pills seized so far this year – more than twice the number of the last two years combined.

Criminal drug networks manufacture the pills to look like legitimate pharmaceuticals including oxycodone, hydrocodone, Xanax, and Adderall. They are then frequently sold on social media and other online marketplaces, making them available to everyone including minors, according to the agency.

While the majority of the fake pills are manufactured in Mexico and then brought into the US, the chemical precursors for the production of the drugs come from China, the DEA added.

They noted that the public warning does not apply to legitimate prescription medications prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist, as that supply chain is unimpacted by the fake pills.