By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Public health officials in the Seattle area are warning about a spike in fentanyl-related overdoses that have killed at least 141 people in King County since June. As in other parts of the country, many of the deaths involve counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with illicit fentanyl.

Three of the recent overdose victims in King County are high school students who took blue counterfeit pills stamped with an “M” and a “30” – distinctive markings for 30mg oxycodone tablets that are known on the street as “Mexican Oxy” or “M30.”

“Teenagers who are not heroin users are overdosing and dying,” said Brad Finegood of Public Health – Seattle & King County. “Do not consume any pill that you do not directly receive from a pharmacy or your prescriber. Pills purchased online are not safe.”

Gabriel Lilienthal, a 17-year-old student at Ballard High School in Seattle, died Sept. 29 from a fentanyl overdose.

“Gabe died from a fake OxyContin called an M30,” the teen’s stepfather, Dr. Jedediah Kaufman, a surgeon, told The Seattle Times. “With fentanyl, it takes almost nothing to overdose. That’s really why fentanyl is a death drug.”

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. It is prescribed legally to treat severe pain, but in recent years illicit fentanyl has become a scourge on the black market, where it is often mixed with heroin and cocaine or used in the production of counterfeit pills. Illicit drug users often have no idea what they’re buying.

As PNN has reported, counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl are appearing across the country and have been linked to hundreds of deaths. Yet this emerging public health problem gets scant attention from federal health officials, who are currently focused on an outbreak of lung illnesses associated with vaping that has resulted in 18 deaths.

‘Enough to Kill San Diego’

In San Diego last month, DEA agents found five pounds of pure fentanyl in the apartment of Gregory Bodemer, a former chemistry professor who died of a fentanyl overdose. Prosecutors say that amount of fentanyl was “enough to kill the city of San Diego” or about 1.5 million people.

Also found in Bodemer’s apartment was carfentanil, an even more powerful derivative of fentanyl, along with a pill press, powders, liquids and dyes used in the manufacture of counterfeit medication.  

Bodemer’s body was found in his apartment Sept. 27. Rose Griffin, a woman who also overdosed at the apartment and recovered, has been charged with drug possession and distribution.

Bodemer was an adjunct chemistry professor at Cuyamaca College in 2016. He had previously worked as a chemistry instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.