A mother has been found in possession of two kilograms of synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Karen Garcia Euceda was arrested by Durham County Sheriff’s Office cops after the drugs were discovered while her four-year-old daughter was also in the car.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the amount of fentanyl she had is enough to kill one million people. The DEA also added that fentanyl is ‘similar to morphine but about 100 times more potent.’
Euceda, who is 24, was arrested in Durham, North Carolina on 25 May, and her child was placed in the custody of a relative.
She has now been charged with two counts of trafficking and misdemeanor child abuse and is currently being held on a $100,000 (£70,000) secured bond at the Durham County Detention Center.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but 50 to 100 times more potent.
It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally. One kilogram has the potential to kill 500,000 people.
The CDC reports that opioids, mainly synthetic opioids (other than methadone), are currently the main driver of drug overdose deaths. A huge 72.9 percent of opioid-involved overdose deaths involve synthetic opioids.
Reports show that Customs and Border Protection has already seized more fentanyl in 2021 than the entirety of 2020.
As of April, a total of 6,494 pounds of fentanyl was confiscated by authorities at the border. This is nearly 2,000 more than the whole year of 2020 when 4,776 pounds was seized.
Dr. Darien Sutton, an emergency medicine physician based in Los Angeles told ABC News: “People don’t realize how dangerous it is.
“When you talk about that amount, how many communities and people that will affect and how many deaths that will be associated with (more than 6,000 pounds of fentanyl) you can’t even comprehend it just because it’s not fathomable.”
Dr Sutton explained how he administers the drug, in its prescription form of course, in micrograms, adding that a 6,000 pound seizure is incomprehensible.
On top of that, methamphetamine confiscations are creeping towards 2020 figures, too. So far this year 105,032 pounds of methamphetamine have been seized. In all of 2020, there were just over 177,000 pounds of meth seized.
*story by LadBible
