‘Rainbow Fentanyl’: 5 Things To Know, Including How Kids Are Targeted

ACROSS AMERICA — The synthetic opioid fentanyl, which federal drug authorities call the deadliest drug threat in America, is showing up across the county in brightly colored pills that look like candies.

The Drug Enforcement Administration in August issued a warning about the so-called “rainbow fentanyl” after large quantities of the highly addictive drug were seized in 21 states. The DEA said the brightly colored pills appear to be a new tactic used by drug cartels to sell fentanyl to children and young people.

Fentanyl, whether brightly colored or white or added to cocaine and other substances or used alone, is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. It is a major contributor to fatal and nonfatal drug overdoses in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doctors prescribe fentanyl to treat severe pain, especially after surgery and for advanced-stage cancer, but most overdoses are linked to the illegal use of the synthetic opioid, according to the CDC.

Rainbow fentanyl began turning up in states along the U.S.-Mexico border, but the substance is now common across the country, according to Department of Justice and U.S. Customs and Border Protection news releases and news reports.

Investigators have seized the rainbow fentanyl in multiple forms, including pills, powder and blocks that resemble sidewalk chalk, the DEA said. Drug traffickers even call their products candy, with nicknames like “Sweet Tarts” or “Skittles.”

“This is another tactic that they’re using to get more fentanyl to more people,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram told NBC News Monday. “The more drugs they can sell, the more addiction they drive, the more profit they make.”

Here are five things to know about rainbow fentanyl:

Kids Targeted On Social Media

Drug traffickers are using technology to gain new customers, following kids on social media to get access to them. Sales are increasingly happening over TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, Placer County (California) District Attorney Morgan Gire said in a news release.

Milgram echoed a similar concern, telling NBC that “what we know without question is that most young people are aware that there are people dealing drugs on social media, not everyone, but particularly when you start to talk to high school kids, they have an awareness.”

She advised parents to have“open and honest conversations” with their kids about the topic — including how deadly fentanyl can be, that they’re being targeted by cartels and how to develop an “exit strategy” if they’re offered drugs.

“When we were in the room with the fentanyl families, the families that have lost loved ones, I was stunned when they said that they wished they’d talked to their kids in elementary school,” Milgram told NBC. “Not in a way that would be frightening, but just in a sense that you have to make healthy choices about your bodies.”

Milgram told NBC the DEA has been called to middle schools to investigate pills that looked like medication but were in fact fentanyl.

Will Halloween Be A Problem?

Drug traffickers have been hiding fentanyl in products for years, Joseph Palamar, an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health and an expert on illicit fentanyl trends, told CNN in an email.

“I think the big difference people are concerned about is with regard to accidental ingestion. People are worried that their kids will take one of these pills thinking they’re another drug or even thinking they’re some sort of candy,” Palamar said. “I don’t think the color of the pills greatly increases the danger to people who don’t use fentanyl, but there is always a possibility of someone who uses fentanyl leaving their pills around in the reach of children.”

Fentanyl pills cost money, which Palamar said reduces the likelihood that drug traffickers will toss them on the ground for kids to find. “I don’t think people will be giving these pills out as Halloween candy,” he told CNN.

Are Some Colors More Potent?

There’s no indication some colors are more potent than others, the DEA said, adding, “Every color, shape and size of fentanyl should be considered extremely dangerous.”

The story that some colors are more potent than others may stem from the fact that counterfeit pills of oxycodone, a much milder opioid than fentanyl and labeled “M30,” are blue pills, Palomar told CNN.

Are Deaths From Illicit Fentanyl Rising?

It appears so, according to the CDC’s latest provisional data, which shows that 109,000 people in the United States died of a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending March 2022. That compares to 76,000 drug overdose deaths for the same period ending in March 2020 — a 44 percent increase from before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overdose deaths involving all opioids rose 38 percent during the 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2021, according to the CDC. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily illegal fentanyl, the DEA pointed out, rose 56 percent during the 12-month period.

Who Is Pushing Rainbow Fentanyl?

The primary source of prescription fentanyl is China, according to 2020 report from the DEA. But criminal drug operations in Mexico — the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel — are the primary source of illegal fentanyl coming into the United States.

The drugs are made with chemicals from China, Milgram told NBC.