Posted on 09/28/2021 7:12:26 AM PDT by Red Badger
US authorities on Monday warned Americans to not buy prescription pills online because they increasingly include lethal doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said the advice applied to counterfeit medicine made to look like real Oxycontin, Vicodin, Xanax, or Adderall.
Fake pills are widely available on social media and e-commerce platforms.
"Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before," said DEA administrator Anne Milgram in a statement.
"In fact, DEA lab analyses reveal that two out of every five fake pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose."
The rare public advisory – the first since 2015 – comes as US drug overdose deaths soared to 93,000 last year, the highest ever level.
Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid most commonly found in counterfeit pills, is the primary driver of the rise, the DEA said.
Overdoses involving methamphetamine, increasingly found to be pressed into counterfeit tablets, are another factor.
More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, more than the last two years combined.
The vast majority were produced in Mexico, with China supplying chemicals for manufacturing fentanyl in Mexico.
It’s possible that’s happened, but this sounds only slightly more ominous than when W was telling us not to buy cheaper drugs in Canada. The same companies are probably paying for that messaging.
I can’t figure out why dealers would add Fentanyl to other drugs. Maybe adding it to heroin if the Fentanyl is cheaper and they have similar effects, but it is too easy to overdose and kill your customers which isn’t a good business model.
Be sure to buy only “official” doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine.
Even if you buy your prescriptions from an American pharmacy like Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Sam’s or Costco, they buy them from overseas, so you have no guarantees at all anyway.
A few years back, 10 or so, there was a scandal that the BP pills from China and India had no meds in them at all.................
Even if you buy your prescriptions from an American pharmacy like Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Sam’s or Costco, they buy them from overseas, so you have no guarantees at all anyway.
A few years back, 10 or so, there was a scandal that the BP pills from China and India had no meds in them at all.................
; )
Non ill people taking fentanyl need to ask self what’s missing in my life.
Jesus..................
Another FDA “regulator” making sure he gets a nice no-show retirement job from Merck. Yes. I am that cynical. FDA bureaucrats are worse than DoD for corruption. The revolving door was invented at FDA.
Big Pharma agents might add those drugs to online pills. It’s one way to encourage people to buy only full price drugs from the AMA stooges.
Could be and many other things always a fork in the road it’s a heads up deal.
Because it’s cheap and plentiful and drug dealers are bad at fractions and ratios.
They aren’t adding it to other drugs, they are making counterfeit pills with it and selling them as “stolen” prescription pain medications.
The fear of Fentanyl has increased the demand and price for stolen prescription meds and the Federal crackdown on doctor’s prescribing pain meds has the usual unintended effect on the market place. Low supply + high demand = counterfeiting.
That’s why I recommend the paste.
“The same companies are probably paying for that messaging.”
The reason not to buy less expensive drugs from Canada is the government wants to force Americans into buying overpriced pharmaceuticals.
There are any number of ways to defeat counterfeiting. Radioisotope tracers, UV-visible watermarks, blockchain tracking, etc. have all been used to verify pharmaceuticals. These are used worldwide, not just in the US.
Also if there are warehouses for storage of pharmaceuticals before distribution, and these are involved with drugs exported to the United States then the FDA is a notified body and audits them.
The government will give every excuse under the sun just to make us pay outrageous prices for drugs.
A big problem is authentic-looking but counterfeit drugs. Among counterfeits, the most common are marked “M-30”, and are fake Oxycodone. These pills may be otherwise marked as “K9,” “215,” and “v48.”
Even non-narcotic counterfeit pills are getting out there. I have personally seen some fake Synthroid, a very common and inexpensive hormone replacement, which were in manufacturer packaging and labeling, but were only sugar pills. Yet they had somehow made it into a reputable supply chain. When I notified the chain, they about lost their marbles.
They had gone to all that trouble to get low profit pills into the supply chain. How much would they do to get the very high profit narcotics there? Scary stuff.
And counterfeits are coming across the Biden border faster than ever before.
A few years back, there was a story that Chinese and Indian employees of pharmaceutical mfrs were stealing the real meds and replacing them with chalk, then selling the real stuff on the black market.
Now it looks like it’s the opposite..............
No sympathy here. Taking pills that are not prescribed for you to deal with a medical condition is a CHOICE. Bad choices frequently result in bad outcomes.
A good start towards solving the problem would be to EXECUTE DRUG DEALERS. From street level to trafficker to kingpin; try, convict and kill them.
Several countries do that.
It cures recidivism.
But doesn’t stop the crime.................
“A good start towards solving the problem would be to EXECUTE DRUG DEALERS. From street level to trafficker to kingpin; try, convict and kill them.”
Yes, but more. Every drug on this table beyond Fentanyl is illegal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equianalgesic
However, some of them, like Carfentanil, while cheap, would make almost perfect Weapons of Mass Destruction. For lethality, Carfentanil is as deadly, or is deadlier, than Plutonium. It is also cheap, with liters and kilos of it showing up in North America. At one point it was $5/kilo.
Just a week ago, a couple was arrested with enough of it to kill 40 million people. Several similar busts have been made in recent times.
The primary purpose of the character James Bond, was to kill anyone who messed with nuclear weapons. No trial or conviction needed. Because what they were doing was so dangerous.
There are some efforts right now, but not enough, to relabel these drugs as WMDs, with all the related sanctions associated with them.
What would the US military do if it got word that someone was trying to smuggle Plutonium, or Nerve Agent, or a Biological Weapon across the US border? Hint, it isn’t arrest.
Maybe stick a Hellfire missile in their ear. That is how you deal with WMD smugglers. Then send in the HAZMAT guys with tweezers, to pick up their sweet, shattered dreams.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.