Mexico seizes fentanyl, meth in bust of large drug lab

The Mexican Army on Wednesday said soldiers seized more than half a million fentanyl pills in a drug lab raid in the northern state of Sinaloa. Officials also removed more than 280 pounds of powdered fentanyl and about 220 pounds of suspected methamphetamines from the facility, making it one of the largest synthetic drug labs found to date. The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday held a hearing on the fentanyl epidemic in America, and lawmakers called for Mexico to increase efforts to stop illegal opioid production.

Why is fentanyl so dangerous? Mexican drug cartels press the opioid into pills counterfeited to look like other medications like Xanax, Percocet, or Oxycodone before trafficking them to other countries. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Many people who overdose on fentanyl were not aware they were taking the drug, and opioids accounted for more than 70,000 American deaths in 2021.

Dig deeper: Read Addie Offereins’ report in Compassion about tracking the fentanyl epidemic.