(UnitedVoice.com) – Just when it seemed the opioid epidemic sweeping the US couldn’t get any worse, it has. Shameless pushers are now targeting children on social media – with fake pills spiked with deadly fentanyl.
Warning: According to the DEA lab, a deadly dose of fentanyl can be as small as 10-20 grains of salt. Clandestine labs are illicitly manufacturing counterfeit pills and selling them with the help of social media.
Learn more >>>>https://t.co/QzAbSgSzkC pic.twitter.com/vVWMjBlBN4— DEASeattle (@DEASEATTLEDiv) January 11, 2022
Schools and police departments are seeing growing numbers of teenagers in possession of fentanyl, and the word is a lot of it’s being bought through social media. Nineteen-year-old Johan Pleitez of El Monte, CA – who overdosed on fentanyl himself and is now in rehab – says teens are getting the drug from “Snapchat, Instagram, people from their school, it’s everywhere.”
A big concern is that fentanyl is being distributed in counterfeit versions of pills popular with teenagers – drugs like Adderall, oxycodone and Xanax. Many teenagers self-medicate, buying these pills illegally over the internet. It’s a cynical ploy by drug dealers – get people to unknowingly take fentanyl, which is highly addictive, to create repeat customers for themselves. And it’s also deadly because quality control is non-existent and up to 40% of pills contain a lethal dose of the drug. In California alone, someone under the age of 24 dies from a fentanyl overdose every 12 hours.
Police and parents are seriously worried; thanks to dealers on social media it’s never been easier to buy illicit drugs – and, by a deadly coincidence, those drugs have never been more lethal. The question is, how many more teenagers will die before something is done about it?
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