Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Customs and Border Protection work hard to keep counterfeit medicines and fentanyl pills out of the U.S., they do still get in. Fake pharmaceuticals and personal care products were the seventh most frequently seized item in fiscal year 2017, and the increase of illicit fentanyl is only mirrored by the increase in the number of deaths caused by synthetic opioids…
The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) announced at the event hosted by U.S. Representative Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) that counterfeit pills made with illegally-imported fentanyl have now been found in 44 states and, with the recent death of an Idaho man, fatalities tied to counterfeit drugs have now occurred in 26 states.
Over the course of one week, the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego, California saw a new record-breaking fentanyl pills seizure of almost 11,500 pills be beaten by an even newer record of over 20,000. Customs and Border Protection arrested and charged two U.S. citizens with trying to smuggle these pills into the country…
The U.S. DOJ indicted Christopher Huggett of Grand Junction, Colorado on one count of distributing fentanyl that resulted in death and one count of distributing fentanyl that resulted in serious bodily harm. Huggett allegedly sold counterfeit pain pills made with fentanyl. Emergency medical services were not able to revive Jonathan Ellington of Carbondale. The second victim is lucky to be alive…
The impact on Canada’s health care system could be devastating. In the aftermath of a previous American proposal, a 2010 study on the potential effects of exporting Canada’s drug supply to the US concluded that “if 10% of the US prescriptions were filled from Canadian sources (manufacturer, wholesale or retail), Canada’s 2007 drug supply would be exhausted in 224 days.”
A 2018 follow-up study reached similar conclusions. Such studies are all but ignored by US clinicians who urge importing drugs from Canada, and who are strangely oblivious to the fact that supplying an American patient could mean taking that same drug away from someone who needs it in Canada.
New details emerge about a counterfeit Xanax drug ring in North Carolina headed by three brothers. Indictments of two more members and additional locations that the ring used to produce fake Xanax pills using fentanyl. This ring was a major supplier to a high school in the area…
Watch PSM's 2018 Interchange to learn about the deadly impact that counterfeit drugs in the US.
FBI Director Louis Freeh on the impact of importation on law enforcement (July 14, 2017)