Emma remembers the first time she took one of the pearly white oblong pills, like straightened-out Polo mints with X-A-N-A-X indented along one side. They felt cool and light, and rattled like beads in her palm. The counterfeit pills split into quarters, and Emma snapped one along its indentations, to make four tiny cubes that scattered across the desk like dice. One by one, she and her friends swallowed the letters.

A couple of years ago it would have been almost unheard of for me to encounter a year-old having problems with benzodiazepines. Why are young people taking Xanax? Some do it to self-medicate for anxiety. Others use it as a party drug in combination with alcohol or cannabis.

Two years ago, Fort Wayne Police Capt. Kevin Hunter attended a drug enforcement conference where participants how tell warned that "if you think synthetic spice is "fake," wait till synthetic benzodiazepine arrives. Last week, two people were arrested in connection with the sale of what proved to be fake Xanax pills at Northrop High School. On March 15, one person died after taking one of the pills, "how to tell if a xanax is fake" on March 16 there was a second fatal overdose involving the pills. The xanax in those cases were 19 and 20 years xanax white round pill .25 mg. In the Northrop case last week, a student who had purchased and taken one of the drugs was quickly affected and taken to a hospital.

When he and his friends started experimenting with an illegal, counterfeit version of Pfizer-brand Xanax at the beginning ofit was just a fun thing to do at parties — or, occasionally, a way to come down after a heavy weekend. He was apathetic — and occasionally violent.

How to tell if a xanax is fake

Law enforcement agencies across the U. People are purchasing the counterfeit drug under the impression that they are getting Xanaxa powerful benzodiazepine prescribed for anxiety, panic disorders and insomnia. However, what they received instead was fentanyla highly addictive painkiller commonly prescribed to cancer patients to how to tell if a xanax is fake extreme discomfort. Fentanyl is times stronger than morphine and 50 times stronger than heroin.

The tablets look just like pharmaceutical grade pills, or Pez candy. They are marked as the anti-anxiety medication Xanax, fake painkillers or packaged in colorful how tell wrappers. In communities across the US, authorities are raising red flags about overdoses on fentanyl by people who thought they took something klonopin show up in drug test. Almost people are dying every day across America from opioid overdoses — more than car crashes and shootings combined. The majority of xanax fatalities reveal widespread addiction to powerful prescription painkillers. The crisis unfolded in the mids when the US pharmaceutical industry began marketing legal narcotics, particularly OxyContin, to how to tell if a xanax is fake everyday pain. This slow-release opioid was vigorously promoted to doctors and, amid lax regulation and slick sales tactics, people were assured it was safe. But the drug was akin to luxury morphine, doled out like super aspirin, and highly addictive. What resulted was a commercial triumph and a public health tragedy.