The year 2022 saw a record amount of fentanyl seizures throughout the Rocky Mountain region, most of which occurred in Colorado.
Special Agent in Charge Brian Besser has served in law enforcement for 31 years. He said the jobs of narcotics officers are far more challenging and critical than ever before.
In 2022, the Rocky Mountain Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration — which includes Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming — seized over 5.8 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl.
Colorado’s population is estimated to be 5.8 million. That is enough fentanyl to potentially kill every person living in the state.
Nationally the numbers were worse. Nationwide seizures in 2022 totaled over 50.6 million fentanyl pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder.
“The DEA Laboratory estimates that these seizures represent more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl, which equates to enough fentanyl to kill every American,” a news release from the DEA states.
In 2021, four out of every ten pills sent to the DEA lab for testing came back positive for fentanyl. These pills were produced to mimic prescription medications such as OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax. Through testing, the DEA discovered that the fake prescription pills were actually filled with fentanyl and were often deadly, according to a news release from the DEA.
Only a year later, the DEA testing lab reported that six out of every ten fake prescription pills came back positive for fentanyl.
“For the first time in my 31-year law enforcement career, we are seeing an oversaturated drug market. Anyone, including our kids, can buy dangerous and deadly drugs at the click of a button. This is like nothing we’ve experienced before …,” Besser said in the news release.
Besser said the market is oversaturated due to two Mexican cartels; Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
“Those two cartels are the most prolific and have a very vested interest in profiteering off the American people,” Besser said. “America has an insatiable appetite for drugs and they (the cartels) have literally been shifting away from plant-based, organic drugs like heroin and cocaine from years ago and the market has significantly shifted over to synthetics.”
Fentanyl has taken over as the king synthetic drug in the west, replacing methamphetamines, according to Besser. He said drug cartels are able to produce a large number of pills — often in the thousands or millions — for a low cost.
The low cost to produce the drug has allowed the cartels to flood the market causing an oversaturation. This not only means that fentanyl pills are easier to acquire but they are also cheaper to purchase, Besser said.
“At the advent of the opioid epidemic, our undercovers weren’t uncommonly paying sometimes $10, $15, $20 — we even paid as high as $40 — per pill, five or six years ago. Now you can buy pills for less than $1,” Besser said.
The reduced price per pill forces cartels to find a way to get more people to purchase their drugs. Besser said this is why people are seeing the advent of rainbow fentanyl and other designer colors.
“The accessibility and the availability of these drugs are unparalleled. This is why kids get their hands on them so quickly,” Besser said.
“We are pointing to a lot of people — especially parents, caregivers and educators — to our one pill can kill resource; dea.gov/onepill, because we are finding that a vast majority of our parents that are losing children had no idea what fentanyl even was,” Besser said. “We are trying to get the word out to save lives.”
