FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ohio — More than 1,000 pills of "rainbow fentanyl" were recently confiscated by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office.
According to a release from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, the sheriff's office seized 1,025 brightly colored pills during a Columbus-area drug-trafficking investigation. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Drug Chemistry Laboratory identified the pills as rainbow fentanyl.
“These particular pills originated in Mexico but were intercepted by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office before they could be distributed,” said Yost, who described the drug as "death disguised as candy."
The colorful, deadly pills are designed to drive addiction in young people, according to Yost. The drugs have been showing up in dozens of states across the country.
In December, Columbus police detectives testified in court that rainbow fentanyl was found in storage units in Reynoldsburg.
In 2022, BCI's lab identified fentanyl in 9,151 items submitted by law enforcement, making up 22.1% of all drug analysis. So far in 2023, the lab processed 2,306 items containing fentanyl.
Additionally, the lab continues to see analogs of fentanyl, including para-flouorfentanyl, which was found in 6.4% of all drug analyses conducted in 2022.
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