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Deadly Rainbow Fentanyl Expected to Infect Colorado

Word has been shared among Colorado law enforcement agencies that a large shipment of rainbow fentanyl is heading to Colorado from its Mexican origin. 

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid pain killer. Its legitimate use is frequently in the treatment of very sick cancer patients. But Mexican drug cartels are getting rich selling it off market to users who can't get prescription drugs, like Percocet or Valium. It is said to be 50 times more potent than heroin. There has been a lot of speculation that the colored pills are being distributed to entice youth. Whether that's true is debatable (across the decades many of the so-called club drugs have been brightly colored). 

This, however, is true: illicit fentanyl can be deadly because doses are inconsistent. Fentanyl is sometimes mixed with other drugs, like cocaine or Percocet, making them especially dangerous. A fentanyl-laced Percocet pill is far more potent than normal Percocet. 

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports an almost 70% increase in fatal fentanyl overdoses from 2020 to 2021, with more than 900 deaths total last year. We are not immune, many of those 900 deaths were in Northern Colorado.