SALT LAKE CITY – As students prepare to return to school, the Drug Enforcement Administration is warning parents about a disturbing trend of fentanyl use among school-age children across the country and right here in Utah.
According to the DEA, fentanyl is present in every corner of the valley.
Dustin Gillespie, assistant special agent in charge of the department, said the days of felons getting drugs in dark alleys in the middle of the night are over.
Instead, most transactions are done online through social media and online payment options.
“Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, these are the channels through which dealers communicate with each other, meet and market their drugs,” Gillespie said.
Payment is then often made via online apps such as Venmo or Zelle. The drugs are then left on the buyer’s doorstep or in a mailbox, so the dealers never have to meet the buyers in person.
“Seven out of 10 pills we test in our labs contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl. It is the most powerful and deadly drug our country has ever seen,” Gillespie said.
He said fentanyl is already being introduced in middle school.
The thing is, Gillespie said these pills look identical.
“Our lab technicians, who test millions and millions of these pills every day, all year long, can’t tell the difference. So if our lab technicians can’t distinguish between legal and illegal drugs, we can’t either,” Gillespie said.
He said you should never take a pill that has not been directly prescribed to you by a licensed doctor, because fentanyl could kill you within seconds.
Gillespie said it is critical for parents and guardians caring for their youth to educate families about what is going on behind the scenes.
“You have to know what they’re doing with these applications. It can seem intrusive. It can seem uncomfortable to interfere in their affairs, but you have to do it because they’re being exploited by some pretty sophisticated drug traffickers,” Gillespie said.
The dose of fentanyl classified by the DEA as potentially lethal is incredibly small: just two milligrams.
For reference, this is the amount that would fit on the tip of a pencil.
