'Most deadly drug that I've seen': DEA insight on fentanyl crisis, advice for families

WASHINGTON (WJLA) — TheDrug Enforcement Administration is offering insight on the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. and advice for families.

WJLA spoke Thursday to the Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Washington Division amid a recent rise in teen drug overdoses.

The overdoses are happening both in schools and at home.

"We're in the middle of a crisis," said Jarod Forget. "I've met with parents in this area, from D.C. to Maryland and Virginia. I've communicated with these parents, who found their loved ones, their son or their daughter, passed away the next morning, in their bedroom. They went to bed doing their homework, talking to their friends on the phone, playing video game, and the parents didn't think anything of it. Little did they know there was a pill purchased online."

Forget said he's heard stories like that far too often involving counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.

"I can say in my 20 years in law enforcement, this is the most deadly drug that I've seen," Forget said, referring to fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin. According to the DEA, it takes just two milligrams of fentanyl, the small amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, to be a potentially deadly dose.

So where is it coming from?

"Most of it, if not virtually all of it, is coming from Mexico, from two cartels," Forget said. "They're largely responsible for virtually all the fentanyl we're seeing in our area. They're sending in the fentanyl powder and the fake pills containing fentanyl."

He added that those cartels are using chemicals sourced largely from China.

"These pills are made in some clandestine lab in Mexico with chemicals largely sourced in China," Forget said. "They make these pills that look exactly like the real thing, but these cartels aren't chemists... frankly, no one knows what's in them. So when people are buying these pills, they think they're getting a Percocet or an Oxy 30 for example. They're getting a fake oxy, and they pass away because it contains two milligrams or more of fentanyl."

How are those drugs getting into the hands of young people?

Forget said drug traffickers are often targeting young people and using social media to peddle their counterfeit pills.

There are drug traffickers, members of the cartel, online and targeting young people. They're using various apps such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook," he said. "So we need to be aware of what our children are doing, what our kids are doing on these platforms."

He said drug traffickers are also using coded language and even emojis to communicate with each other and with young people online.

"They're peddling pills, and young people that may be looking to get a pill online – which no one should ever be getting any pills online, you should only get pills that are actually prescribed to you directly by a doctor – but when you have young people that are looking to purchase a pill or multiple pills online, unfortunately what you are getting are fake pills," Forget said. "You're getting pills that aren't the real thing, and they're not from pharmacists or a doctor. They're from cartels."

DEA laboratory testing in 2022 revealed that six out of 10 of those counterfeit pills contained a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.

Perhaps the scariest part is that sometimes even highly-trained DEA agents can't tell the difference between real and fake pills.

"At DEA when we come across the pills, we can't tell the difference. I'm a trained DEA agent. My staff, my agents, we can't tell the difference with these pills. We have to send them off to a lab, a DEA lab," Forget said.

Forget said that's why it's so important for people to educate themselves, their families and their kids about the dangerous of fentanyl.

"We need to be talking to our families, talking to our neighbors. Bring a high level of awareness everywhere. Your workplace, your job, your church, wherever it might be, bring that level of awareness," he said. "We at DEA also work directly with the schools on raising awareness."

Just this week, a student at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, was found unresponsive in a school bathroom from what police described as an apparent drug overdose. Arlington County Police have not yet said whether fentanyl or fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills are suspected in that case, but WJLA has learned the opioid overdose reversal medication known as Narcan was administered quickly to the student.

As of Thursday, that student remained hospitalized in critical condition.

Forget said the DEA has reached out to Arlington County Police to offer the DEA's resources and assistance in the investigation, which is standard protocol during drug overdose cases. He said the DEA is focused on finding the drug traffickers and distributors, and holding them accountable.

"We go after the distributors," he said. "We're going to hold those people responsible. If you're going to distribute fake pills that have fentanyl and are killing people, we will hold you responsible."

In 2022, the DEA's Washington Division confiscated nearly 160,000 fake pills containing fentanyl, and more than 250 pounds of fentanyl powder. That equates to over 8.3 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl. To put that in perspective: the DEA says that's enough to potentially kill 54% of the people living in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.