According tot he Columbia River Drug Task Force, the first seizures of rainbow fentanyl have occurred in Wenatchee Valley within the last month. Various law enforcement agencies across the country have been seeing the colorful drug show up on city streets. So far, the problem has remained on the west side of Washington state. Though now officers say it’s bleeding into the east side.
“Other drugs that have been discovered, [with] these different colors in the past, where primarily marketed his party drugs at raves and that type of thing.” says Task Force Commander Chris Foreman. He adds that the worst facet of the drug filtering east of the Cascades is the powdered form.
“The difference between the pills and the powder, [is] not in the color, but in the potency. The powder tends to be either pure fentanyl, or it is less cut.” Though he adds that the powder form has yet to be found in the region, it’s only a matter of time before it is.
Foreman also notes that authorities have seen pictures of multicolored fentanyl pills on the phones of suspects who live in the Wenatchee Valley, as well.
The potent opioid has a lethal dose (the amount required for the average human to lethally overdose) a fraction of that of heroin.
According to the U.S. government, the fentanyl is being manufactured in China before it is sent to the cartels in Mexico who either press it into illicit pills, cut it into other drugs (like cocaine) before being smuggled over our southern border. Sometimes the powder form is smuggled and dealers stateside press it into their own pills.
LOOK: Here are the pets banned in each state
Because the regulation of exotic animals is left to states, some organizations, including The Humane Society of the United States, advocate for federal, standardized legislation that would ban owning large cats, bears, primates, and large poisonous snakes as pets.
Read on to see which pets are banned in your home state, as well as across the nation.