Spotlighting America’s Fentanyl Crisis on Red Ribbon Week

Narcotic detectives seized about 12,000 suspected fentanyl pills that were packaged in bags of candy at Los Angeles International Airport in California on Oct. 19, 2022. Courtesy of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

News Analysis

Thirty-seven Octobers ago, Mexican drug cartels kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. People began wearing red ribbons to honor Camarena’s sacrifice, and Red Ribbon Week was born, observed annually in late October.

Symbols can make us mindful and across the Midwest, 15 landmarks will light red in recognition that drugs killed more than 108,000 Americans last year, according to Justin King, DEA Omaha Division Special Agent in Charge.

One Pill Can Kill

The DEA and other law enforcement agencies seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder this summer between May 23 and Sept. 8. That’s more than 35 million lethal doses, the DEA said.

One that got through killed Jacob Lampe. The 23-year-old Westfield, Indiana, man died on July 13. Along with fentanyl, the autopsy found a combination of morphine and three other chemicals in his system, according to court records. Police investigating Lampe’s death found he was chatting on CashApp with someone calling himself Bennylapdance1, who’s actually Benjamin Ingram, court records said. Ingram was charged with dealing a narcotic drug resulting in death and faces up to 40 years in prison.

Fentanyl’s icy fingers reached the idyllic Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, to snatch the life from a 16-year-old identified as G.D., on August 28, 2020. Earlier that month, Antoinne James Holmes, 23, of Cusick, Washington, sold G.D. the fentanyl that killed him. Earlier this month, Holmes was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison, the DEA said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized approximately 47,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills, 186,000 blue fentanyl pills, and 6.5 pounds of meth hidden in a floor compartment of a vehicle at the Nogales port of entry on the southern border with Mexico on Sept. 3, 2022. U.S. Customs and Border Protection

What’s Fentanyl?

Illicit fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin. It’s cheaper and easier to manufacture and more addictive. It also carries a greater risk of overdose, especially for young people with no experience using opioids, Dr. P. Todd Korthuis, a medical school professor at Oregon Health and Science University said in a March op-ed.

Pharmaceutical fentanyl was developed for severe pain management and prescribed as skin patches or lozenges. Yes, prescription fentanyl can be diverted for misuse, but most cases of fentanyl-related overdoses in the U.S. are from illegally made fentanyl that is sold by drug dealers; the precursor ingredients are manufactured in communist China and shipped to Mexican drug cartels, according to the DEA. The Sinaloa and CJNG cartels in Mexico produce fentanyl and fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills with those chemicals from China, the DEA says.

Fentanyl is smuggled by mules who transport the drug across the border from Mexico. In October, a federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment against a 19-year-old Laredo, Texas, resident Ivan Eleodoro Garciahe over allegedly transporting fentanyl pills disguised as oxycodone. Garciahe allegedly drove his 2014 Ford Taurus into a Border Patrol checkpoint north of Laredo. Drug dogs alerted at the rear of his car, where agents found 13 bags of blue pills, prosecutors said. At first, agents thought they were oxycodone pills because each pill was embossed with the letter M. A quick field test found them to be counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, the Justice Department said. Garcia faces up to life in prison and a $10 million fine.

The Decriminalization Question

Oregon and Colorado are among the states that tried decriminalizing—or at least de-felonizing—possession of small amounts of fentanyl. Since then fentanyl deaths have surged in both states. Oregon’s overdose death rate went up 41 percent in 2021; while Colorado’s rate of increase of fentanyl was second in the country from 2019 to 2021, according to nonprofit Families against Fentanyl.

“We have the second highest increase in fentanyl deaths in the country, so we’re lagging behind nearly all other states dealing with this crisis. That’s something I attribute to policy, like legislators decriminalizing the possession amounts and sending a clear signal to dealers this is a place you can more easily peddle your drugs,” Matt Solomon, a Republican running for Colorado State Senate told the Epoch Times. “

Oregon voters approved Ballot Measure 110 in 2020, decriminalizing small amounts of narcotics. In 2021, the Oregon state legislature made it official when it slashed criminal penalties for possession of one gram of fentanyl to a misdemeanor.

Last year, Oregon overdose deaths increased 41 percent, compared to a 16 percent increase nationwide, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Risk-taking is a normal part of teen development, according to Korthuis. But, pills purchased on the internet or from friends could be counterfeit and might contain fentanyl.

“They’re unforgiving and they can lead to fatal overdose at first exposure,” Korthuis wrote in his op-ed.

Recovery specialists in rural Oregon used to see five nonfatal overdoses per month, Korthuis said. Now it’s 40 to 50 a month.

In 2019, the Democrat-dominated Colorado legislature reduced the penalty for fentanyl possession to a misdemeanor for anything under four grams. The state saw a huge increase in fentanyl deaths: from 81 in 2017, to 912 in 2021, National Center for Health Statistics figures show.

In the last hour of this year’s session, the Colorado legislature reversed itself and re-felonized fentanyl and other synthetic opiates, something prosecutors across the state begged lawmakers to do.

Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 45, says Families Against Fentanyl.

Cleaning Up the Mess

Cleaning up an apartment contaminated with fentanyl or methamphetamine looks like something out of “Breaking Bad,” Mike Bolton with the Bloomington (Indiana) Housing Authority told Epoch Times.

Bolton is a certified fentanyl remediator. All too frequently he pulls on a hazmat suit, enters an apartment, and cleans up the mess left behind from drug labs.

“It’s so lethal in such small amounts. No amount is okay,” Bolton said.

Not so long ago they found a meth lab next to their office and hired a firm to clean up the mess. The cost was staggering, so Bolton took the training and started doing it himself. They scrub the air, the walls, and every other surface. Occasionally it’s so pervasive that they have to gut the unit to make it habitable for humans.

After quieting down for a decade, fentanyl is making a huge surge, Bolton said, becoming more prevalent than all the other drugs combined.