Fentanyl pills found at Crosby-Ironton High School
Oct. 6—CROSBY, Minn. — A student was removed from the Crosby-Ironton High School on Thursday, Oct. 5, after meth and fentanyl pills were found, school officials reported.
In an emailed statement Friday to parents and families, Jennifer Strom, Crosby-Ironton High School principal, said a student found a baggie in a classroom containing pills later confirmed by the police department to contain a combination of meth and fentanyl.
The student believed to have brought the drugs was removed from the school and the case has been turned over to the police department, Strom said.
"Please take some time to discuss with your children the importance of avoiding interacting with foreign substances and to contact school staff immediately if found," she said. "Our students did a great job yesterday of reporting the drugs to a staff member and giving the school and police the information needed to identify who brought them."
Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a Crow Wing County board meeting on Aug. 8, Chief Deputy Andy Bradley, with the Crow Wing County Sheriff's Office, talked to the Crow Wing County Board about the rise of fentanyl in the county and what the Lakes Area Drug Investigative Division has been working on to stem its flow into the county.
In August, the LAID conducted multiple search warrants in the city of Brainerd in reference to the sale and distribution of fentanyl in the Crow Wing County area. As a result of these search warrants, about 3.1 pounds (estimated between 13,000-15,000 individual pills) of suspected fentanyl (MBox 30), 204.8 grams of suspected cocaine and six firearms were seized.
Two suspects were arrested — a man from Brainerd and one from Detroit.
In July, three people were arrested north of Garrison in Aitkin County after a 2-year-old overdosed after fentanyl exposure. In September, two men were arrested for fentanyl possession during a traffic stop north of Little Falls by the Morrison County Sheriff's Office.
"Fentanyl is the main drug of choice right now," Bradley said. "... The problem with fentanyl is it's killing people and the amount of overdoses we are having is off the chart ... So where are we going from here, I don't know, but obviously, fentanyl is a huge problem. ... And it's one that could kill you, you just don't know which pill is going to do it."
