DEA Warns Of 'Mass Overdose Events' From Fentanyl: See California Data

CALIFORNIA — Fake prescription pills, as well as other illegal drugs, are being cut with fentanyl because the synthetic opioid is so cheap to manufacture, but it's behind a deadly wave of poisonings that killed more than 11,000 Californians for the period ending October 2021, according to provisional data published last month by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In California, 11,476 people died from fentanyl toxicity from October 2020 to October 2021. It represents a 26.55 percent increase over the previous year, according to the CDC data.

Two-thirds of the 105,750 people who died of drug overdoses in the United States between October 2020 and October 2021 were using synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, according to the CDC data, although many didn't even know fentanyl was in the substance they were taking.

In fact, the DEA said, in 2021 fentanyl killed more Americans than guns and traffic crashes combined.

Fentanyl is “killing Americans at an unprecedented rate,” Drug Enforcement Administration head Anne Milgram said.

'Mass Overdose Events'

Pharmaceutical fentanyl is about 100 times more potent than opioids and has a legitimate purpose in medicine, but drug cartels also mix it up in clandestine "labs" and smuggle it into the United States through Mexico for the black market, according to the DEA. On the streets, cocaine is laced with fentanyl to make it more powerful or stretch the base product, or it’s pressed into pills and passed off as legitimate prescription pills such as Percocet, Vicodin or OxyContin.

Because there is no official oversight or quality control, the counterfeit pills can contain lethal doses of fentanyl and the user is often unaware.

“Drug traffickers are driving addiction, and increasing their profits, by mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs,” Milgram said. “Tragically, many overdose victims have no idea they are ingesting deadly fentanyl."

Illegally produced fentanyl is found in all 50 states and Milgram said in the letter to local, state and federal law enforcement officials that in recent months 29 people have died in 58 “mass-overdose events” in seven U.S. cities.

A mass-overdose event is one in which three or more people take a lethal dose in proximity of time and place. In recent months, such events have been reported in Wilton Manors, Florida; Austin, Texas; Cortez, Colorado; Commerce City, Colorado; Omaha, Nebraska; St. Louis, Missouri; and Washington, D.C.

The DEA said it is ready to step in and assist law enforcement officials in California to trace mass-overdose events back to local drug dealers and the international cartels behind the surging domestic supply of fentanyl.

It takes about 2 milligrams of fentanyl to kill a human being. So far this year, the DEA has seized almost 2,000 pounds of fentanyl and 1 million fake pills. Last year, the agency seized more than 15,000 pounds of fentanyl, four times as much as was confiscated in 2017.

That’s enough to kill every American, the agency said.

Fentanyl-Induced Homicide

Matt Capelouto of Temecula wants to know why drug dealers are "getting away with murder?" He questions why someone who knowingly sells a fentanyl-laced drug to an unsuspecting buyer should not be charged with murder if the customer dies from the poison.

Capelouto's cause is personal. He and his wife lost their 20-year-old daughter, Alexandra, on Dec. 23, 2019, to fentanyl poisoning after she took one pill marketed to her as oxycodone by a drug dealer she found on Snapchat. Alexandra's mom found her dead in her room. The 2017 Great Oak High School graduate was on holiday break from college.

"Our daughter did not overdose," the Capelouto's said. "She was poisoned."

Since losing their daughter, the Capelouto's have been fierce proponents of changing the fentanyl conversation. Matt has since launched the nonprofit druginducedhomicide.org that is working to get state legislation passed to make it possible to charge drug dealers with murder when someone dies from the suppliers' products. Druginducedhomicide.org also seeks to raise awareness about fentanyl and support families of victims "who were unlawfully delivered a controlled substance resulting in their death."

Matt Capelouto prompted change in Riverside County, where prosecutors are now charging suspected drug dealers with second-degree murder if there's enough evidence. At the urging of the Capelouto's and other grieving families, other counties have followed suit.

"There is no safe way to use or sell fentanyl," Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said earlier this year in a news conference. "Fentanyl is lethal to the human body. It's a menace; people are dying."