Flood of counterfeit pills claiming local lives, triggering alert
‘One Pill Can Kill’ warning from Feds about dangerous drug claiming lives
FOX 26’s Greg Groogan spoke one-on-one with Houston’s top Anti-Drug Cop and the grieving sister of an innocent victim to discuss an urgent national alert about the consequences of a counterfeit tablet laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
HOUSTON - One pill, one grave. Just one pill and a lifetime of potential cut irrevocably short.
It would be the fate of Molly Conklin's beloved brother Brian, an accidental casualty of a counterfeit tablet laced with a lethal dose of Fentanyl.
"I just figured this wouldn't happen to my family. This wouldn't happen to the ones that I love. Truly, I don't think he had any idea. I think he took a gamble and he paid the ultimate price for it," said Conklin.
It is a fatal price being exacted on the unwitting here and across the nation by a flood of counterfeit pills camouflaged as legitimate pharmaceutical drugs.
"We're at a crisis right now. One pill can kill. Clearly, these counterfeit pills are taking over. They are taking over the City. They are taking over the United States," said Daniel Comeaux, the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special-Agent-In-Charge for Houston.
The warning Comeaux brings about millions of counterfeit pills masquerading as medicine should frighten one and all.
"Right now four out of ten pills, four out of ten pills, have a lethal dose in it," said Comeaux.
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Deadly levels of the ultra-potent synthetic opiate known as Fentanyl, manufactured by Mexican cartels and smuggled in alarming quantity across our southern border.
At 50 times more powerful than Heroin, a two-milligram dose of Fentanyl is enough to end a life.
"Selling it at a cheap, low cost to get people addicted. The problem is, it's not a professional making it. They put one extra drop into it and boom, you are dead," said Comeaux.
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A swift and fatal outcome for the reckless and unsuspecting.
"A really good person can have one bad day, one bad moment, a bad second and end up dead," said Comeaux.
"A really good person" like Molly's brother Brian.
Three months to the day after a phony pill snatched his life, a sister, still grieving, honors his memory with a message.
"Don't risk it, don't risk your life don't risk putting your family and your loved one in this much pain," said Conklin.
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Conklin says her brother was an avid cyclist and a proud U.S. Navy veteran who left scores of friends devastated by his loss.
Law enforcement officers across the nation have seized more than 10 million counterfeit pills this year alone - a number that has quadrupled since 2019.