ODESSA, Texas — Counterfeit pills are fake medications that have different ingredients than the actual medication.
Though at a glance they may look like the medication you’re needing, more times than not they aren’t.
“Well what we're looking at, specifically right now, is it's a blue colored pill with an M on them, that is not always an M, could be another letter; but that is reported to be some type of hydrocodone or Xanax or something like that from a dealer, but what you're getting is a pill that is laced with fentanyl,” said OPD Police Chief Michael Gerke.
An increasing number of pills laced with fentanyl are being produced in the U.S.
Mexican and domestic drug trafficking organizations operating in the U.S. produce counterfeit pills with pre-made chemicals and drugs from China and/or Mexico.
However, OPD is always on the look out for these narcotics, no matter the trends in this black market industry.
“The occurrences that we see of these pills fluctuates up and down and if we see a spike we devote a lot of our resources, a lot of our enforcement resources to finding these M30 pills, these fentanyl pills.” Chief Gerke continued.
OPD says for parents with teens, you need to pay extra attention and look for any unfamiliar medications in your child’s possession.
The DEA says high school and college teens regularly purchase Adderall and Xanax through outside sources, meaning their chances of coming across laced drugs are much higher.
For more information on counterfeit pills, how to identify them and how to avoid them, you can read more on the DEA's website by clicking or tapping here.