ST. GEORGE — Fentanyl is now the most seized narcotic and responsible for at least half of all fatal overdoses — prompting a warning by the Utah Attorney General’s Office.
During a press conference held last week in Salt Lake City, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes warned of an increase in fentanyl use across the state. He was joined by DEA Special Agent Jonathan Pullen, U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina Higgins, Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera and Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown.
Not only is fentanyl becoming more prevalent, but tests conducted in DEA labs revealed that 7 out of 10 pills sold on the street contain a deadly dose of fentanyl.
To combat the increase of this deadly drug, the Utah Attorney General’s Office has formed a coalition with the DEA, Utah District Court and law enforcement.
For years, methamphetamine was the most commonly seized drug in Utah — that changed with the rise of opioids, and fentanyl now ranks No. 1. In the last year alone, fentanyl has been the drug most frequently tested by the state drug lab, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.
With less than six months remaining in 2024, the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division has already seized nearly 800,000 fentanyl pills in Utah — a new record, eclipsing the 664,200 pills seized in 2023, Tanner Jensen, director of the Department of Public Safety’s statewide information and analysis center, said in a recent statement.
And the influx of fentanyl across the state has also caused the price to drop. In 2020, a single dose ranged between $25 to $30, which plunged to $3-$5 in 2023, and this year, the street price hovers around $2.
The influx has also hit Southern Utah, evidenced by the number of seizures over the last few months, including one reported May 7, when an anonymous tip led to the recovery of some 108,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl during a traffic stop near the Southern Parkway Exit in Washington County. The seizure led to the arrest of 27-year-old Jazmin Tentory-Ortega of Houston, Texas.
A traffic stop in February on Interstate 15 just north of the Utah-Arizona border led to the discovery of thousands of suspected fentanyl pills, as well as synthetic fentanyl powder and methamphetamine, resulting in three arrests. When broken down into street-level sales, the pills were valued at more than $129,000.
On the morning of May 28, nearly 200,000 fentanyl pills were recovered during a traffic stop on northbound Interstate 15 just north of Cedar City by the Utah Highway Patrol. The seizure resulted in the arrest of Omar Torres Arroyo, 21, and Eric Arredondo, 19.
Utah has also seen an uptick in cutting agents such as xylazine in some of the lab test results of seized fentanyl. Xylazine is for use by veterinarians to sedate large animals such as horses and cattle, but it is not safe for use in humans, St. George Police Lt. Johnny Heppler told St. George News in May.
Xylazine used as a cutting agent “is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” said DEA administrator Anne Milgram.
The DEA report found that seizures of fentanyl, in both powder and pill form, are at record levels and have doubled over the past two years, and nearly one-third of those fentanyl seizures contained xylazine — a 25% increase from the previous year. To put this into context, in 2010, there were 63 reports of xylazine. Fourteen years later, that number has risen to more than 11,700 reports of the substance being detected in the U.S. drug supply.
Overall seizure records continue to be set because of investigative work, but also because fentanyl pills continue flooding into the state, which also serves as a corridor, with multiple interstates used to traffic drugs across the nation.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office is committed to protecting Utah communities from the scourge that is fentanyl — which Higgins described as “the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced.”
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2024, all rights reserved.