Brightly colored fentanyl pressed into pills or in a chalky form—called rainbow fentanyl—was found in 18 states, a press release from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warns, and drug dealers getting “kids and young adults” hooked early on.

It was only a matter of time until fentanyl and other deadly drugs were marketed the way designer drugs are, as colorfully branded pills and in other forms.

“Rainbow fentanyl—fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes—is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “The men and women of the DEA are relentlessly working to stop the trafficking of rainbow fentanyl and defeat the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in the United States.”

While even the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) admits there has never been a fatal overdose recorded from cannabis alone—fentanyl is a completely different story, as it has a knack for stopping breathing.

There’s no other way to look at what’s happening in the United States with opioids as anything other than an epidemic. In fact, according to NIDA’s data, deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone—primarily fentanyl—continued their steady death march with 56,516 overdose deaths reported in 2020.

That number, 56,526 deaths, is in the ballpark of total U.S. military casualties during the Vietnam War recorded in the Defense Casualty Analysis System. Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 107,622 total drug overdoses in 2021, and say that the majority, or 66% of those deaths, are related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. (The CDC also says an overdose from cannabis is “unlikely.”)

An overdose from accidentally taking a bit too much fentanyl, however, is likely. The DEA’s announcement reminds us that fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. In other words, 2 mg of fentanyl, equal to 10-15 grains of table salt, can kill you. Obviously, street drugs don’t provide lab testing results—and the margin for error is as slim as 2 mg.

The opioid epidemic is a multifaceted problem, however. On the flip side of the opioid epidemic, there are also people with high-level pain who complain that they are denied opioids and falsely labeled addicts.

The DEA announcement blames cartels for the rise in rainbow fentanyl, explaining that the fentanyl available in the United States is primarily supplied by two criminal drug networks: the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

Uttam Dhillon, former acting administrator of the DEA, told Yahoo! News on September 1 that the Sinaloa cartel has ramped up pill production big time, and that DEA agents are now seizing millions of fentanyl pills in places such as Los Angeles.

“Even seeing just one lab in Mexico pressing pills was something unique that we were seeing. And this was only a few years ago,” Dhillon told Yahoo! News. “Now we’re seeing literally a million pills being seized in Los Angeles, for example, just a few months ago. So the growth has been massive.”

The DEA is fighting back with public awareness campaigns and FAQ sheets.

Launched in September 2021, the ”One Pill Can Kill” Public Awareness Campaign was launched by the DEA with a goal to educate Americans about the dangers of fake pills, which can be disguised as a less dangerous pill or in other ways. The DEA also provides more resources for parents that can be found on DEA’s Fentanyl Awareness page.

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As the wholesale price-per-pound of legal cannabis plummets in some states bordering Mexico, cartels in the country are shifting to more lucrative drugs: fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18-45, thanks in part to criminal involvement in multiple countries.

Texas is the only state bordering Mexico without adult-use cannabis, and it shows in the prices. Mexico’s cartels once relied on organic farms of poppies and cannabis to produce drugs, but the times have changed. Illicit cannabis eradication in Mexico was slashed in half in recent years—aligning with the timeline of pot legalization up north.

Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, General Luis Cresencio Sandoval said that for cartels, cannabis and other organic drugs like opium-rich poppies are out, and fentanyl is in. 

The Associated Press reports that according to Sandoval, seizures of fentanyl soared 525 percent during the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s reign, who took office December 1, 2018, compared to the previous three years. 

During that time period, law enforcement agents seized 1,232 pounds (559 kilograms) of fentanyl in 2016-2018 and 7,710 pounds (3,497 kilograms) in 2019-2021.  

The reason for the switch is that the bottom line improves when cartel operations shift from organic opiate to synthetic opioids, which are cheaper to produce. “There was a change in consumption, there was a change in drug markets due to the ease of producing synthetic drugs,” Sandoval said. Cartels no longer have to pay for manpower to grow poppies and slowly scrape the opium that oozes from the poppy bulbs. The same could be said about the growing/trimming/curing process for cannabis.

But the synthetic drugs don’t originate from Mexico. Mexican cartels can order fentanyl online from Asia at wholesale value, then cut it up into doses ready for the street. Labs also produce drugs like meth, which is also more profitable than organic cannabis or opium. “The laboratories that have been discovered or seized in this administration have had larger capacities, which has allowed us to seize a larger quantity of methamphetamine products,” Sandoval said.

Meth seizures soared from 120,100 pounds (54,521 kilograms) in 2016-2018 to nearly 275,000 pounds (124,735 kilograms) in the last three years—a 128 percent increase. On November 18, a record-breaking amount of meth and fentanyl were discovered being delivered from a trucker at the Otay Mesa port of entry in San Diego, according to a report by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of California. Border agents found 17,584 pounds of methamphetamine and 388.93 pounds of fentanyl in the truck.

Mexico’s data matches recent documents updated on October 14, and compiled by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which operates within the Library of Congress, working directly for members of Congress. “Despite early supply chain disruptions, U.S.-bound illicit drug supplies appear to have returned to pre-pandemic levels; illicit fentanyl flows in particular appear to be thriving,” CRS reported. Just a year earlier, the CRS admitted that legal cannabis in particular is hurting cartels in another document. “Authorities are projecting a continued decline in U.S. demand for Mexican marijuana because drugs ‘other than marijuana’ will likely predominate,” CRS wrote. “This is also the case due to legalized cannabis or medical cannabis in several U.S. states and Canada, reducing its value as part of Mexican trafficking organizations’ portfolio.”

Meanwhile, Mexico’s Senate is on track to endorsing recreational cannabis.

Still, some cartel operations plan on selling cannabis, legal or not. The Daily Beast reports that the Sinaloa cartel are already working on infiltrating the legal pot market in Mexico, according to “cartel operatives.” It’s unclear how the cartel plans to move forward, such as muscling its way into licensing.

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