Halloween Candy or Rainbow Fentanyl?
By Diza Pandey
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With Halloween approaching, a new drug, bright colored fentanyl pills called Rainbow Fentanyl, concern many parents. According to the DEA, these drugs resemble chalk and candy, potentially making them more attractive to children and young adults. The DEA has seized rainbow-colored fentanyl pills in at least 21 states. It takes a very small dose for children to overdose, making it even more deadly. Even a tiny amount, around two milligrams of fentanyl, can kill an adult.
Warning the nation about dealers marketing fentanyl to children and young adolescents, the DEA also suggested cartels use colored blocks of the drug so that it resembles sidewalk chalk. According to The New York Times, cartels have smuggled the drugs through different types of toys such as LEGOs to make them less suspicious. Many of the pills found had been put into large Ziploc bags or pressed to resemble oxycodone or Xanax in prescription pill containers. New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell stated “disguising fentanyl as candy and concealing it in children’s toys will never hide the fact that fentanyl is a deadly poison that harms our communities, our families, and our city.” This recently released statement came after a huge drug bust in New York City.
Rainbow Fentanyl cases among younger generations have been growing rapidly in the past few months. Photo by Diza Pandey.
Apex Friendship’s own SRO, Officer Stone, talks about how teenagers at a younger age could be fooled by trusting what they get even when not from a trusted source. He explains, “We're in a day and time where we can’t take anything that isn’t in a package and something that you don’t trust. What we are seeing in fentanyl, kids who believe they are buying a certain type of drug, they are not knowingly buying fentanyl.” Officer Stone also talks about the spread of the addictive drug being “mass produced in Mexico and China and being shipped all over the world”. When asked if teenagers around the high school ages of 14-18 would be the targeted audience for fentanyl, Stone says, “Fentanyl hasn’t really reached a younger age group as it has with adults.” Recently, Officer Stone had talked for a Fentanyl Awareness and Drug Panel for WRAL and learned to see that many of the people closest to the age of a high schooler have been “fresh college students whose ages range from 20-22”.
With Halloween coming around the corner, Officer Stone has this advice for students at Apex Friendship High School: “The biggest thing when talking about candy, make sure that it is from a trusted source and packaging.” Although these substances may resemble candy, don’t be fooled, they can be deadly.
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