Fentanyl “candies” seized in the USA (DEA photo)
The US Drug Enforcement Administration and police departments across the country have issued a warning about a new strategy by drug cartels to sell fentanyl: selling colored fentanyl pills that look like candy to hook up teenagers.
On the other hand, members of the Sinaloa cartel, the Mexican criminal organization behind the largest shipments of fentanyl to the US, told Business Insider that their intention is actually the opposite.
US authorities began their campaign several months before Halloween, warning of alleged attempts by Mexican drug cartels to lure children into drugs by selling rainbow-colored fentanyl pills and adding fentanyl to holiday candy.
“An alarming trend in the availability of colored fentanyl across the United States,” the warning said. “Fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes – are a deliberate effort by drug dealers to drive addiction among children and teenagers.”
The reports described large quantities of colored balls and warned parents to keep an eye on their children. A cartel operative involved in the production and shipment of fentanyl from Mexico said the coloring was “intended to make it look different from coke or white heroin,” said the dealer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In 2021 alone, more than 100,000 people in the US died from fentanyl overdoses. Most were accidental deaths after using a substance like cocaine, heroin, or fake Percocet pills that were laced with the opioid.
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“We know that some dealers in the US have started mixing cocaine with fentanyl without informing their buyers, and this is very dangerous,” said the activist, disclaiming responsibility, “whatever happens when we take it out of our hands, it’s not our problem.”
Despite the concerns, a Washington Post review from mid-August to late October found only one case of an accidental ingestion of a colored fentanyl pill by a 2-year-old child.
However, on November 17, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against members of La Nueva Familia Michoacana, another Mexican cartel, accusing them of marketing ‘rainbow fentanyl’ and “a deliberate effort to drive addiction among children and adolescents”.
A Sinaloa cartel operative denied that his organization targets children or teenagers in the US. “Why would we want to turn children into addicts? What will this help us?” the dealer told Insider. “We want to sell what the people are asking for in the US, but it’s not for children or people who don’t want to take drugs.”
Organizations like the Sinaloa La Nueva cartel have been producing fentanyl in the form of counterfeit blue Percocet pills or adding it to heroin doses for at least four years.
Fentanyl is cheaper to make because it is a synthetic opioid and does not require the time and expense of making heroin or cocaine. The income from the sale of the opioid may be up to five times that of cocaine or heroin.
A leaked 2019 DEA report called the cartel “a prominent producer and trafficker of Mexican-made fentanyl into the United States,” according to the investigative journalism project Forbidden Stories.
The increasing focus of the cartels on the production of fentanyl is reflected in the quantities seized. In San Diego County alone, the amount of fentanyl seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased from 1,599 pounds in 2019 to more than 6,700 pounds in 2021.
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