Purchasing Fentanyl ‘Easy as Ordering Uber’: California County Supervisor

Purchasing fentanyl is now as easy as ordering an Uber.

At least that’s what one county supervisor in Orange County, California, is saying.

“You can order takeout on your iPhone. You can order an Uber. Now, if you have the right app, you can order fentanyl,” Orange County Supervisor Doug Chaffee told The Epoch Times.

Last year, county authorities seized nearly 550 pounds of fentanyl—enough to provide more than 100 million lethal doses, he said.

“When you consider the population of Orange County is 3.1 million, we could kill everyone here 30 times over,” Chaffee said. “You can see what an incredible crisis this is becoming.”

In 2016, Orange County had 37 deaths from fentanyl, Chaffee said. But that number accelerated to 717 in 2021.

Many young adults are getting their hands on the drug through social media where they can purchase through an anonymous dealer.

“You don’t have to contact your favorite drug dealer on the street. You can actually order it now through your iPhone. And so that’s what our youth do. … It’s almost as easy as ordering an Uber,” he said.

Chaffee said many teens and young adults are impacted because they are experimenting at that age. But oftentimes, they don’t intend to consume fentanyl, as they may unsuspectingly purchase a counterfeit oxycontin pill, not knowing it’s laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl, he said.

“It’s usually mixed in and blended with something else. They think it is not as powerful. But it’s the wrong stuff,” he said.

That’s what happened to Alexander Neville, whose case is perhaps one of the most notable in Orange County, as he was only 14 years old when he died after ingesting an illegally manufactured prescription pain pill he bought from a dealer on Snapchat.

“After his death, his parents learned the pill contained enough fentanyl to kill three people,” Chaffee said.

Since then, his mother Amy has started the Alexander Neville Foundation to educate families on the dangers of fentanyl and how to use the opioid overdose antidote, called naloxone.

One Pill Can Kill

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Officials there have said a majority of the chemicals used to make fentanyl are coming from China and being shipped to Mexico, where they are mass produced into counterfeit pills.

“One pill will kill,” Chaffee said. “Something as small as two grains of sand of fentanyl will kill you.”

Many families whose loved ones have died of a fentanyl overdose refer to their deaths as poisonings, as many have died taking a counterfeit prescription pill not knowing it contained a lethal dose of fentanyl.

“Drug dealers mix [fentanyl] in other kinds of drugs because it’s cheaper. And you don’t know what you’re buying. You think you’ve got Oxycontin? Well, OK, but it’s got some fentanyl mixed into it. We find people unsuspectingly buying that and die,” he said.

Chaffee said fentanyl is being put into counterfeit pills because it “gives the same effect at a lower cost to the drug dealer.”

Homeless Deaths Skyrocket From Fentanyl

Deaths of Orange County’s homeless population have quadrupled over the last decade, mostly from fentanyl overdoses, according to a February report from county law enforcement.

Homeless deaths in the county rose from 85 in 2010 to nearly 400 in 2021, the latest year included in the report, of which over 75 percent were drug-related, mostly involving fentanyl, according to the report.

“If you’re homeless, and you’re depressed and not feeling unwell … they keep adding the drug into daily use even. And sooner or later they get a bad batch and they die,” Chaffee said.

Preparing for the Worst

Chaffee is not alone in his concerns.

His county supervisor colleagues and other local officials, such as the district attorney and sheriff, have been holding town halls, informing parents of the dangers of fentanyl and distributing naloxone—commonly known as Narcan—to local residents.

Narcan is a nasal spray that can take several doses to reverse an opioid overdose. Hospitals, law enforcement, and schools often keep it handy, as it needs to be given within minutes of an overdose.

“It’s saved a lot of lives,” he said. “But you have to be there at the right time to administer it.”

Chaffee said Orange County sheriff’s deputies have been carrying Narcan in their squad cars since 2015.

Since then, “they’ve successfully used Narcan on 382 individuals that otherwise probably would have died,” he said.

And that’s just one agency. It doesn’t account for all departments in the county that have administered the drug and saved lives.

“That’s one example, and that’s a lot of people that would have added to the death statistic,” he said.

According to data released by the U.S. Department of Justice, 107,735 people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses from August 2021 to August 2022, with two-thirds involving synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.

Between 2019 and 2021, fatal overdoses nationwide increased by about 94 percent, with an estimated 196 Americans dying daily from fentanyl poisoning.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced a record-breaking seizure of more than 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl throughout the country in 2022.

In California, fentanyl seizures increased by 594 percent last year, according to the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom.