BEND, OR -- Recent drug seizures have taken thousands of fake pills containing fentanyl, and the powdered form of the drug off the streets, but Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson says a lot more needs to be done to eradicate this dangerous synthetic opioid, “Two pounds has the potential to kill 500,000 people. 2022 seizures for the DEA: enough seized to kill everybody in America.” He believes stronger security at our nation’s southern border would help prevent fentanyl from getting to Oregon, “A lot of this fentanyl is coming from Mexico. They’ve got these labs in Mexico where they’re making these counterfeit pills, which are very hard to tell from real pills, and that is coming into the United States.”

Nelson says parents need to start talking to kids early about the dangers of opioids. He tells KBND News a state bill expanding access to short-acting overdose reversal drugs like Narcan isn’t enough, “I don’t think that’s going to solve the dangers of fentanyl. That is going to save lives, so they can get back on the path to being a productive citizen. But that is just a response system. What we really need to do is make sure we’re having those conversations, and we’ve really got to get back to secure borders. We’ve got to put some of these political conversations aside and look at public safety.”

Nelson adds catching the local dealer is just the start, “Because you always want to try to go through that chain of supply and try and get the ‘larger fish,’ if you will - the bigger supplier, so that you can shut down that drug trafficking organization and hold those folks accountable.” Earlier this month, a local bust led to the seizure of more than 12,000 fentanyl pills. In the past week, state troopers found 88 pounds of powdered fentanyl and 100,000 pills in two busts near La Grande and Salem.  Sheriff Nelson says these types of investigations can be time-consuming, as detectives try to track down the suppliers responsible.