DEA warns of counterfeit pills flooding the U.S. and the use of emojis for transactions

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released information this week about the use of emojis on Snapchap and other social media sites, and e-commerce used in the buying and selling of counterfeit pills and other illicit drugs.

In a statement, the DEA said they are aware of drug trafficking organizations using these symbols to buy and sell counterfeit pills and other illicit drugs and want the public to be aware.

With accidental drug overdoses due to the use of fentanyl in counterfeit pills on the rise, especially in teens, the DEA said they want the public to be aware and have created a website dedicated to it (https://www.dea.gov/onepill). While emoji use alone is not indicative of drugs or illegal activity, when used together with changed behaviors, changed appearance, and significant change in income, the DEA says there may be a problem.

Fake pills are a growing concern across the country with communities like Boulder, Colorado seeing an alarming increase in overdose deaths due to counterfeit pills containing fentanyl. In 2021, 14 deaths in Boulder are tied to fentanyl, and the illicit drug has killed 624 people in the state of Colorado so far this year.

According to the recent report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a month ago, more than 100,000 Americans, including about 10,000 in California, died of drug overdoses during the 12-month period used in the report that ended in April 2021. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids (primarily with fentanyl) and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine also increased during that time.

That’s a record high and a nearly 29 percent increase from the year before. Almost 64 percent of deaths were caused by the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Closer to home, the figures haven't appeared to increase in those high rates, as of now. With the pandemic, toxicology reports are taking up to six months to be returned, so the cause of some deaths won't be known for awhile according to South Lake Tahoe Police Lt. Shannon Laney.

"We have not seen a pattern of an increase in arrests or deaths," said Laney of the use of fentanyl.

Over in El Dorado County, the sheriff's office is reporting only a slight increase in cases due to fentanyl, according to Sgt. Eric Palmberg, but not the large amounts others are seeing at this time.

Douglas County Undersheriff Ron Elges said their focus is getting the drugs off the street.

"Any amount is too much and we are working with all of our law enforcement neighbors, collectively, to keep these drugs out of northern Nevada and our close partners in California," said Elges. "It is cyclic, meaning, the trend changes and we know this, so we do our best to change and try to get in front of the changes."

When they see changes on the California side of the border, Douglas County responds to alert the community of the danger of pills such as what happened with "M30 pills" in 2020. The pills circulating near Mammoth and Bishop, California were counterfeit pills stamped with “M30” that contained fentanyl. In 2019, there were 10 overdoses among their residents resulting in two deaths.

In May 2021, a Reno man plead guilty to selling hundreds of counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl.

Fentanyl is an extremely powerful opioid analgesic that is 100 times more potent than morphine. The fentanyl is also manufactured in clandestine laboratories. Miniscule amounts of the fentanyl are then mixed with some other substance and then formed into counterfeit pills using a tablet press.

Fentanyl is so potent that two milligrams are considered a lethal dose. To put that in perspective, there are 28.3 grams in an ounce, 1 milligram is 1/1000th of a gram. The scales that drug traffickers use cannot weigh these minute amounts, so the drug traffickers guess how much fentanyl to add to their pills. This results in a great number of these counterfeit pills containing lethal doses of fentanyl.