Fentanyl pill seizures dropped in Hamilton County. Why officials are still concerned

Elizabeth B. Kim and Terry DeMio, Cincinnati Enquirer
Updated ·4 min read

Fake prescription pills containing fentanyl are pouring into the United States, a new study shows, magnifying the threat of death from overdose nationwide.

In the Cincinnati region, though, the fentanyl-tainted pills have seen a downturn among seized drugs analyzed by the Hamilton County Crime Laboratory. Even so, they remain a deadly threat – especially to people who do not have an opioid addiction, experts say.

U.S. High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area agents seized 2,300 times more fentanyl-tainted pills in 2023 compared with 2017 – jumping from almost 50,000 in 2017 to more than 115 million pills in 2023, according to a study released Monday that was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Fentanyl pills make a strong showing overall – with the proportion of fentanyl pill seizures to total fentanyl seizures representing 49% of illicit fentanyl seizures in 2023, compared to 10% in 2017. The data were gathered from the U.S. High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area organizations, including those in Ohio and Kentucky.

Experts say the pills, often unrecognizable as fake, are a serious threat to people including those who only occasionally take pills.

"There is evidence that a pretty large portion of teen deaths from fentanyl involve pill use," said Joseph Palamar, lead author on the study and an associate professor of population health at New York University. "I'm sure some of this is unintentional exposure."

'A really scary moment': Young people's overdose deaths jumped in 2020, so, what now?

Fentanyl in a pill form may be attractive to recreational drug users because they don't have to inject the drug, Palamar said. They could also be tempting for students to take, warns the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, because they may be disguised as a variety of pills including Adderall, popular among youth as a study and test-taking aid.

A counterfeit Adderall pill that U.S. Drug Enforcement agents seized.
A counterfeit Adderall pill that U.S. Drug Enforcement agents seized.

The pills are pressed to look just like a variety of prescription pills. Those that appear to cause the highest risk for unintentional fentanyl exposure are oxycodone, pressed as M30s, and alprazolam, which most people know as Xanax, Palamar said.

There's no way to tell how much drug seizures make a dent in the fentanyl availability, according to Palamar, because there's so much fentanyl, and fentanyl is "cheap to make" compared to other drugs. "We don't really know whether seizures help prevent deaths, but they are correlated."

In 2022, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdose in the United States, with 75% attributable to opioids, including fentanyl.

Hamilton County sees drop in fake pills – but threat is grave

Laura Kimble, senior drug chemist and forensic scientist with the Hamilton County CoronerÕs Crime Laboratory located in Blue Ash, counts out fake oxycodone in the Blue Ash-based lab in 2022.
Laura Kimble, senior drug chemist and forensic scientist with the Hamilton County CoronerÕs Crime Laboratory located in Blue Ash, counts out fake oxycodone in the Blue Ash-based lab in 2022.

Hamilton County saw a dramatic downturn in overdose deaths in 2023, and experienced a downturn of seized fentanyl pills as well.

Despite the decrease in 2023, people in Hamilton County are still vulnerable the threat of the fake prescription pills, said Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan, a coordinator with the Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition.

"The concern is that they can tap into an entirely different market that may not seek illegal fentanyl for an addiction but instead seek medication for another condition," Synan said, "and be unintentionally exposed to fentanyl."

Congress passes new bill to target illegal fentanyl supply chain, leaves Internet out of it

Congress passed a new law in response to the increase in fentanyl pill seizures, according to Ohio's U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, who introduced the bill along with U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, of South Carolina.

Brown visited Talbert House, a Cincinnati-based mental health and addiction facility, on Monday to discuss the FEND Off Fentanyl Act.

“This bill is a response to that rise," said Brown about FEND Off Fentanyl, which according to him took a little over a year to be written and get to President Joe Biden's desk. "That’s why Congress moved relatively quickly.”

The law will authorize the U.S. Treasury Department to block the financial assets of criminal organizations responsible for trafficking fentanyl and other illicit opioids.

“What I can do as a federal official is work to keep this stuff from even being made, take the profit out of it for these cartels that have profited from people’s tragedies," said Brown.

The Enquirer asked Brown whether FEND Off Fentanyl would help prevent teens from buying fentanyl-laced pills on the internet, an area of increasing concern for parents and doctors across the country. Brown said that it does not address that issue specifically, but that the law would help reduce the supply of the drug in the first place.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Fentanyl pills jump in US, threatening lives. What Congress is doing