More Marijuana Tainted with Fentanyl in U.S.: Authorities Warn of Increase

Fentanyl is currently the most deadly drug in the United States. And not only because a dose as small as the tip of a pencil is lethal, but because it is increasingly found in more types of drugs, thus triggering deadly overdoses.

It has penetrated the country's illegal markets so much that states like Louisiana, New York and Georgia are reporting more deaths from fentanyl-infected cannabis use.

[The opioid crisis isn't just a white problem: Deaths among Hispanics have skyrocketed]

Michael Wenzinger, a psychiatrist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, told KTVI Fox2 on Sunday, "In my clinical practice and among some of my peers, we're seeing more kids reporting that they thought they were just smoking marijuana, when drug tests show fentanyl, and they have toxicological or medical side effects consistent with that."

Prescription opioids (such as oxycodone), heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine were the drugs most likely to be contaminated with traces of fentanyl, either purposely added by manufacturers or traffickers, or accidentally added, experts say, so it's striking that it's now detected in cannabis as well.

Marijuana had until now been one of the few psychoactive substances that were safe from the plague of the dangerous opiate. Magdalena Cerdá, a professor and director of New York University's Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, told Noticias Telemundo in January that "there was a lot, a lot of product of all the drugs right now" that were contaminated by fentanyl: "When you consume any type of drug, (there's a chance that) you're going to be using fentanyl as well." The exception, according to her, was cannabis. Five months later, the reality is different.

A worker cuts cannabis flowers at the Glass House Brands cutting facility near Camarillo, Calif., Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Jill Connelly/ / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Cases in different parts of the country

In January of this year, in Covington, Louisiana, an hour from New Orleans, police seized cannabis and other drugs laced with fentanyl from a man at a traffic stop.

Detectives found about 7.5 grams of marijuana and 450 counterfeit oxycodone tablets that tested positive for fentanyl, in addition to 11 ecstasy tablets and 28.95 grams of cocaine that they suspected also contained the opiate.

[The new drug mix that makes the "deadliest substance the country has ever faced, fentanyl, even more lethal."]

Synthetic marijuana (a well-known form called Delta 8), processed in laboratories and most commonly consumed in the form of drops or gummies, is more likely to be contaminated with toxic substances than the plant that is grown whole more naturally, warns the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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In February of this year the district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, said police had discovered synthetic gummies with THC (one of the psychoactive substances in marijuana) that contained fentanyl and had caused two nonfatal overdoses.

According to local reports, U.S. Attorney Kevin Steele said undercover detectives found both fentanyl and heroin in the Strictly Delta gummies, 'Delta 8 THC 600 MG Happy Cubes'.

Also the Summerville Police Department in South Carolina warned last October that it had "seized marijuana that was allegedly contaminated with amphetamine and fentanyl" and in a warning to the public on Facebook asked "the community to stay safe and be careful."

When you use any type of drug, (there's a chance that) you're going to be using fentanyl as well."

Magdalena Cerdá Dir. of the Center of EPIDEMIOLOGY AND POLICIES OF OPIOIDS, NYU

In January of this year, in Dalton, Georgia, a 13-year-old boy was in a coma for two weeks and suffered brain damage after inhaling cannabis from an e-cigarette containing traces of fentanyl.

"[The doctors] told me he will never be the same child he was before. He was an outstanding student," his mother, Lynda Amos, told the New York Post.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has described fentanyl as "the deadliest drug threat our nation has ever faced," agency Director Anne Milgram said in August of last year.

In 2022, about 100,000 people died from overdoses in the United States. Of those, two-thirds from fentanyl, now one of the leading causes of death in the country between the ages of 18 and 49, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

And this is affecting more and more Latinos. The opioid crisis that began in the late '90s has now entered a new phase: It's no longer just a white-only problem, and deaths among blacks and Hispanics have skyrocketed.

Deaths have increased dramatically when this substance is mixed with other drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, which are more commonly used among Hispanics than heroin or prescription opioids, explains Cerdá, the NYU researcher.

Between 2007 and 2019, fatal overdoses among Hispanics from opioids laced with cocaine have increased 729%, and mixed with methamphetamines, they have increased 4,600%.

"Fentanyl is everywhere," Milgram had said in August. "From large metropolitan areas to rural America, no community is safe from this poison. We must seize every opportunity to spread the word and prevent fentanyl-related overdose deaths and poisonings from claiming dozens of American lives every day."