News Photo by Steve Schulwitz LaFave Pharmacy employee Patrick Attwell, left, looks on as his coworker Avery Spicer counts Percocet pills that will be used for a prescription on Tuesday. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is warning people to fill prescriptions in person because of the dangerous counterfeit drugs that are sweeping the nation.

ALPENA — Potentially lethal and counterfeit prescription drugs lined with fentanyl and other dangerous narcotics being sold in the United States, including Northern Michigan, are a growing concern for law enforcement.

On Tuesday, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration public information officer-Detroit division Brian McNeal visited Alpena to promote the agency’s One Pill Can Kill campaign and talk about the large task law enforcement is facing by helping control the import of fake prescription drugs that are killing thousands of people per year in the nation.

McNeal said China and the cartels in Mexico have developed an expansive network that distributes and sells pills that replicate popular painkilling narcotics to the general public. He said, today, seven out of 10 counterfeit prescription pills contain a lethal dose of fentanyl and many people are dying because of it. McNeal said the fake pills often claim to be OxyContin, Percocet, Adderall, Xanax, and hydrocodone.

The problem, McNeal said, is often counterfeit pills contain large portions of fentanyl, or the other narcotics listed above, which can kill an average person.

He said a two-milligram dose of fentanyl, which he described as 11 grains of salt, can kill a human. McNeal said the DEA has also seen a large uptick in the amount of fake pills that contain methamphetamine. He said although meth isn’t as deadly as fentanyl, it is cheaper which means more people may purchase it and that could increase the number of overdoses and deaths in the country.

McNeal said some of the fake pills are only caffeine and other fillers, but most of the time it is laced with fentanyl or methamphetamine.

“It’s worse odds than playing Russian Roulette and they look just like the prescription that we get from our doctors and pharmacist,” he said. “They sell them online, they are selling them on the street. The user thinks they are taking something else and the user can not tell the difference by simply looking at them.”

McNeal said people should protect themselves, and the ones they love, by not ordering medications from websites that advertise discount drugs on social media or buy them from someone in public. He said people should only fill doctor’s prescriptions that come from pharmacies.

“If you order pills off of social media or shady websites, there is a 70% chance you are getting pills that can kill you,” he said. “You only want to take pills from a prescription given to you by a doctor and handed to you by a health professional.”

McNeal said sellers of counterfeit pills on social media and on some websites have developed a code, using emojis, that allows people in the drug culture to identify what type of drugs are in the pills.

There are several ways the drug cartels are shipping the drugs into the United States, McNeal said. He said there are drugs entering the country through the southern border, and large amounts come into America through ports that are scattered throughout the nation.

“They are coming through legal ports of entry,” he said. “They are coming through the checkpoints that are manned by customs, in trucks, cars, shipping containers, and planes.”

Combating the issue is challenging, McNeal said the State Department is leaning on China to reduce or end shipments of the needed components for the fake pills to the cartels, and the DEA is targeting “the big fish” in the cartels to bring them down.

He said although technology helps lead drug busts and arrests, there isn’t enough manpower or time to search and test all of the shipments coming into the United States at its ports or at the border. He said if there was a search of every car, truck, or ship, it would create a large logjam and a delivery chain issue that would lead to further inflation and higher prices.

“It would cause a huge mess for trucking and shipping,” he said. “I don’t think people want to pay $40 for an avocado.”

McNeal said the One Pill Can Kill program is a good teaching tool for schools, local groups, and organizations, as well as the local government to educate residents on the dangers of counterfeit pills. He said the DEA website has a tool kit people can use for presentations, and the DEA office in Detroit is willing to send a representative to conduct a presentation.

“We’ll do whatever we can to help,” he said. “You have no idea how many families I have talked to that have lost a loved one because of this and it’s heartbreaking.”

In 2023, the DEA seized more than 80 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The 2023 seizures are equivalent to more than 381 million lethal doses of fentanyl.

The 2024 fentanyl seizures represent over 204 million deadly doses.

More than 100,000 people in the United States died last year due to a fentanyl overdose.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 or sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.