If you need prescription medications of any type, there is only one safe way to obtain them: get a prescription from a licensed medical doctor and pick up your pills from a legitimate pharmacy. Any other method such as buying them on the internet, getting them from a friend or obtaining them across the border in a foreign country could be fatal.
This is the new era of counterfeit prescription drugs. The threat posed by counterfeit pills is more severe than it has ever been. In September 2021, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported that it had seized more than 9.5 million pills so far in the year. That’s more fake pills seized than the prior two years combined. Also important to note is the fact that two out of every five fake pills seized that contained any fentanyl had a potentially lethal dose of the drug.
What’s In These Pills?
Far too often, they contain fentanyl, a type of powerful synthetic opioid. Fentanyl is actually a family of dozens of closely related drugs. The image below provides a graphic look at the relative danger of heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil. At one time, fentanyl and carfentanil were only manufactured and distributed in very controlled circumstances by pharmaceutical companies. Now, illicit forms of these and many others from the fentanyl family are present in every U.S. state.