The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in Florida announced on Monday that they seized enough fentanyl to kill 1.5 million adults, according to an official Twitter post. Pictures of confiscated narcotics were included, as well as the specifics of the bust: 3 kilos of fentanyl, 1.26 kilos of cocaine, and more than 6,000 counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.
Fentanyl is the main factor behind most overdose death in the United States, with the chemical being 100 times more potent than morphine and lethal with as little as two milligrams. Demi Lovato had a near-fatal overdose in 2018 due to fentanyl-laced oxycontin, whereas fentanyl has cut far too many lives short including Mac Miller and Lil Peep.
The location and circumstances of this drug bust are unknown, but just days ago, Flagler County police detained 52-year-old Adrian Rivers 70 miles south of Jacksonville for similar drug charges. Fox 35 reported that Rivers had enough fentanyl on his person to kill 100,000 people. Colorado State Patrol Officers also cracked down on a load of the lethal opiate earlier this summer, seizing 114 pounds of fentanyl from a vehicle en route to Denver on Interstate 70. Officials called it the largest fentanyl bust ever conducted on a highway.
These recent busts contribute to a 50-fold increase of seized Fentanyl-laced pills between 2018 and 2021, owed in part to new technology that scans trucks on the border for the substance. While these developments are largely stateside, Mexican government authorities revealed last July that they undertook the largest fentanyl seizure in history. Their army and National Guard reportedly raided a Culiacan warehouse in a “historic” raid, confiscating half a ton (and $230 million worth) of fentanyl.