(NewsNation) — Agents and police have made a growing number of busts across the country, and they’re warning about the dangers of candy-colored rainbow fentanyl.
The DEA says fentanyl is coming into the U.S. through the southern border. That’s one reason Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has given for using shipping containers to create a border barrier.
But the problem goes far beyond border states.
In Phoenix, police made a bust containing speckled, multicolored fentanyl pills. They said it’s the first time they’ve seen tablets that look like that.
In Seattle, police searched 14 locations in a massive operation involving multiple law enforcement agencies, resulting in the arrests of 19 people in Washington and California in connection with three drug trafficking groups.
More than 330,000 fentanyl pills were seized, along with more than 1,000 pounds of meth, 25 kilos of cocaine, 20 kilos of heroin, 110 firearms and more than $1 million in cash.
In Eugene, Oregon, a DUI stop resulted in the largest fentanyl seizure in the police department’s history. An officer discovered a 42-year-old driver slumped over the steering wheel at a stop light and found bags of fentanyl pills, according to the department.
Follow-up searches of the driver’s car and home resulted in 18 pounds of suspected fentanyl in both powder and pill form, over $47,000 in cash and 12 firearms, six of which were stolen.
Authorities are warning that no street drugs are safe to take because any of them could be mixed with fentanyl.
Eugene police say they’ve found counterfeit versions of oxycodone, Adderall and Xanax contaminated with fentanyl, and had reports of contaminated substances being sold as cocaine, MDMA or methamphetamine.
Just two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose.