Today, kids are faced with a drug landscape that's less like a pathway and more like a minefield. Their first, second, or third step out there could be their last because they don't know what's in those substances. The counterfeit pills on the market today are very difficult to distinguish from real prescription pills. They're made in what's called a pill press, where illicit drug producers get the dyes and stamps and put them in these pill presses to stamp out pills that look like real Xanax bars or Percocet.
The most commonly counterfeited pill is what's presented as an oxy or a Percocet, stamped with an "M" on one side and a "30" on the other. The US Drug Enforcement Agency tells us that 60% of the counterfeit pills out there right now contain potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. So many of the pills that people might think are real aren't what they think they are. They haven't been prescribed by a doctor or dispensed by a pharmacy. In fact, they're fake, and more likely than not, the amount of fentanyl in one of these pills could kill someone.
It's so cheap to make these pills; they're made for cents and sold for dollars—$10, $15, $20. But when somebody dies, the person selling them is thinking about their profits. Doing business includes some downsides, like maybe losing some customers. We lost 108,000 people last year to overdose, and that's just the fatalities. There are a lot of non-fatal overdoses as well.
Years ago, if someone was using heroin, it would probably be far into their use before they would be at the point where they could overdose. Now, you can overdose with your first pill. It's just a different situation.
