Health officials have issued an urgent warning about a drug far deadlier than fentanyl ripping through the Midwest. 

The Detroit Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said this week it has seized nearly 30lbs of Carfentanil, roughly 150,000 pills, in the last year. 

Brian McNeal of the Detroit Field Division said: ‘To put that in perspective, that’s enough to provide a deadly dosage, properly distributed to everyone in North America.’ 

Carfentil is a synthetic fentanyl made in a lab and typically used as an elephant and large cattle tranquilizer because it is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than its cousin fentanyl.

As little as 2mg, about one 50th of a pinch of salt, of the drug can be lethal – slowing breathing to dangerous levels, leading to brain damage or death. Often, drug users don’t know they’re taking the drug until they begin to overdose.

Oftentimes, the substance finds its way into the drug supply because cartels in Mexico press Carfentanil, typically sourced from China, into pills that masquerade as pure benzodiazepines or add them in powder form to heroin and cocaine.

Benzodiazepines are used to treat conditions like anxiety and insomnia, but people may abuse them and resort to buying or selling them illegally on the street, where they can become laced with Carfentanil. 

Detroit officials estimate the drug made it into the area between 2016 and 2017, disappeared for several years and then started to re-emerge within the last year. 

In the past year, officials in Detroit have seized nearly 30 pounds of Carfentanil—roughly 150,000 pills

Seizures of Carfentanil and fentanyl, more broadly, are ticking up. Customs and Border Protection reported 22,000 seizures in 2024. There were about 27,000 in 2023 and 14,700 in 2022

The most recently seized Carfentanil supply had been pressed into fake oxycodone or hydrocodone tablets. 

McNeal told local news: ‘With this thing in micrograms, .002, can be a fatal dosage. So the end user might be seeking what they think is an oxycodone or hydrocodone, and they end up getting fentanyl or Carfentanil, and then they’re poisoned and die.’  

The presence of Carfentanil in the illicit drug market began to tick up in 2016, around the time it appeared in Detroit. 

But because it’s difficult to tell which fentanyl overdoses were linked to Carfentanil specifically, the true toll is hard to determine.

There were 513 overdoses from Carfentanil between January 2021 and June 2024, hitting states like Florida and West Virginia the hardest, according to a December CDC report.

While the overall numbers are low, CDC officials are concerned because the total increase from the summer of 2023 to the summer of 2024 rose more than 720 percent.

From July 2023 to June 2024, nearly 87 percent of Carfentanil-related deaths also involved IMF (a dangerous mix of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids like carfentanyl and another analog, acetylfentanyl).

Over that period, Carfentanil was found in overdose deaths in 37 states, with eight states—all east of the Mississippi River—seeing at least 20 deaths each.

A recent seizure in Nebraska, for example, contained 24 pounds of Carfentanil pills, making this one of the largest Carfentanil busts in US history.

And earlier this year, Department of Homeland Security officials intercepted a package at Los Angeles International Airport containing roughly 20 grams of Carfentanil (10,000 times the lethal dose) to be delivered to a man in Provo, Utah. 

Seizures of Carfentanil and fentanyl, more broadly, are ticking up. Customs and Border Protection reported 22,000 seizures in 2024. There were about 27,000 in 2023 and 14,700 in 2022.

Detroit officials estimate the drug made it into the area between 2016 and 2017, disappeared for several years and then started to re-emerge within the last year

The latest CDC report included data from January 2023 to June 2024, with the number of overdose deaths that were attributed specifically to Carfentanil. Four states did not participate in the analysis 

The 2024 seizures were equivalent to more than 377million lethal doses of fentanyl.

Carfentanil comes in powder, paper, tablet, patch and spray form, and can be inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin. 

In it’s powdered form, the drug mimics cocaine or heroin, and is often mixed into other illegal drugs like xylazine or counterfeit pills. 

McNeal in Detroit also warned Narcan – a nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses – might not take effect with a normal, single dose. 

He said: ‘The problem is, with this being such a powerful opioid, Narcan, they may need two, three, four, five hits of Narcan.

‘You know, 30 years ago, you could have a 20, 30, 40-year addiction. You can’t do that now, the odds are just stacked against you with these synthetic opioids that you’re going to stumble across something that is lethal.’