What makes fentanyl so dangerous?

The US Drug Enforcement Administration says fentanyl has been around since the 1960s.

It was meant to be a pain-killer for cancer patients.

The DEA says fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine, and 50 times more potent than heroin.

“When you talk about bringing up a kilo of fentanyl, okay, you’re talking about something that’s 50 times more powerful than the heroin you have. So you can cut that, literally, 100 to 1. So where you used to turn around and smuggle 40 kilos of heroin, you can send 1 kilo up. You can mail it up,” said Bob Pennal, a Narcotics Enforcement expert.

Bob Pennal worked in Narcotics Enforcement for over 30 years, and he’s watched the problem grow and grow.

Between 2014 and 2015, the National Forensic Laboratory says reports on fentanyl nearly tripled.

At first, Pennal says most fentanyl came from China; now, cartels in Mexico have taken over production.

“As more and more people started getting addicted to all kinds of opiates – oxycodone, Vicodin – we started seeing Mexican cartels respond to that,” said Pennal. “You can always bring it in on the Dark Web, and that’s a real problem we’re dealing with right now. Especially with your child or grandchild, you don’t know what they’re doing on the computer. It’s easy to access the Dark Web where you can get any of this – literally – mailed to you.”

Because fentanyl is so cheap, so powerful, and so easy to get, drug dealers are cutting it into other, more expensive drugs.

And Pennal says many of the drug dealers literally mix their pills in a blender.

“These aren’t commercial pharmaceutical labs. They’re turning around and one pill has this much active ingredient, the next one has barely any, and then the third has a ton of it and you overdose,” said Pennal.

California is home to several music festivals with a fairly heavy drug culture.

Pennal warns, if you are a recreational drug user, you are rolling the dice.

He says 2 milligrams of this stuff can kill you.

“Nothing is what you think it is anymore. What that means is this: cocaine isn’t just cocaine any more. In this case, they thought they were buying cocaine and it was fentanyl. Crystal meth has fentanyl in it. We’re seeing marijuana now grown in indoor marijuana groves, and we’re starting to find sprayers in there. They’re spraying fentanyl on marijuana,” said Pennal. “It’s a powerful drug, and we’re really in fear of it all.”

And the danger doesn’t stop with fentanyl. Now narcotics agents are starting to see something called carfentanil, which the DEA says is 100 times more potent than fentanyl; that’s 10,000 times as potent as morphine.

Pennal says a new synthetic drug comes out every single week. Since the drugs are brand new, they’re not illegal at first.

That’s caused a problem for world governments that have to go through a lengthy process trying to ban each new narcotic.