What do teens need to know about fentanyl and fake pills? | The New Drug Talk

What do teens need to know about fentanyl and fake pills?

October 24, 2025

Teens and young adults sometimes try to get medications like Xanax or Percocet through social media or from their friends. Unfortunately, these pills frequently contain fentanyl. Fentanyl is so strong that many people have died from taking just one pill, including numerous teenage victims.

Fentanyl can be lethal in microgram quantities. It’s so powerful that a dose that’s a tenth of the size of a grain of sand can have an effect. It’s impossible to detect fentanyl with the naked eye.

Here’s a simple and clear message to share with youth: “Please do not take pills unless they are prescribed to you and you get them directly from a pharmacy. It’s just too risky.”

You've heard about pills killing young people, right? A teenager takes what they thought was a prescription pill and never wakes up. We're not talking about a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise; we're talking about being fatally poisoned by a single pill. One that looks like a legit Xanax or Percocet, except these pills aren't legit. They're counterfeit, fake, and they can kill you within minutes. And it's happening all around.

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The fastest-growing group of victims is young and inexperienced. They take pills for different reasons. Some are experimenting; others are stressed out and self-medicating. Many victims died at home in their beds after swallowing just one pill. Every young person is at risk.

So, what's going on? We live in a quick-fix, pill-popping culture, and we've been taught to trust prescription pills. In some cases, these medications are necessary, but they can also cause addiction. That's why we're in the midst of an opioid epidemic. So many people in the US became addicted to opioids that drug dealers started making fake pills to meet demand. The ingredient of choice for these counterfeit pills? Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that's so potent it has to be highly regulated.

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There's no standard amount of fentanyl in these illegally made pills. They're not prescription medications; they're just thrown together in people's basements and garages with other cheap ingredients like filler powder, impressed into pill form. The dosage is never even. That's why they're so deadly. But fentanyl can be cheaply imported, and it's also highly addictive, which makes it ideal for creating fake pills. The drug cartels got involved too. They started producing these counterfeit prescription pills containing fentanyl, known as "fenta pills," on a massive scale, flooding the US with millions of fakes dressed up to look like the real thing. You can't tell them apart.

Authorities can't fix this or make it go away, but you don't have to be the next victim. If you don't know where your pills are coming from, don't take them. Don't believe sellers on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, or any app. Don't believe friends who get pills from supposedly reliable dealers. Don't believe someone who says a pill has been tested. You may have heard of test strips that can detect fentanyl and illegally made drugs, but they're not reliable with pills where fentanyl can be unevenly distributed. There's no way to figure out whether a pill contains fentanyl without grinding it up and dissolving it, in other words, destroying it. So, if a drug comes to you in pill form, it hasn't been tested, period. And even if you test one pill in a batch, you have no way of knowing whether the other pills contain fentanyl. If it's not from a doctor or pharmacist, it's not legit. No random pills.

Now you know the facts. Tell your friends. Tell everyone you know. The more people who learn about fentanyl pills, the safer we're all going to be. You didn't create this problem, but you can be part of the solution. Help us spread the word. One pill can...

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