BEND, OR -- With Fentanyl distribution, use and overdoses reaching crisis levels in Oregon, drug detectives urge everyone to be aware of the dangers associated with the black market drug.

"It’s become the modern-day version of Russian Roulette." And Detective Sgt. Kent Van der Kamp says it’s not a game anyone should play. The Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team member says because ingredients are unregulated, users may take one tablet laced with Fentanyl and have little reaction. But the second could be deadly. "Recognize that that blue pill could be the last thing you take."

Van der Kamp worries warnings are not getting through, especially to young people, "With school getting back, or the pre-school parties that’s happened the last couple weeks, it’s happened." He says kids often don’t realize the pill or joint they get at a party from a friend is laced with deadly Fentanyl; and they aren’t the only demographic to fall victim, "From young teens to 60-year-old people who are trying to find alternatives to pain medications that they can’t afford, and everything in between. We’ve had instances where maybe mom calls up another friend and says ‘hey I hurt my back.’ And they say, ‘hey, I got these pain medications on the internet’ or ‘I got them from a friend. Here take one of them’." The drug is also evolving, with "rainbow Fentanyl" now appearing in Oregon in powder, block and tablet form. 

Det. Sgt. Van der Kamp tells KBND News the ingredients often come from the Chinese black market and the drug is getting more deadly, "Paramedics show up and they start applying Narcan to a person who’s down. It may take three, four times as much Narcan as normal to get a response from that person because the Fentanyl that they’re using is resistant."

CODE is based in Deschutes County, but the team investigates trafficking cases throughout the state. Van der Kamp says the synthetic drug is typically made outside the U.S. and brought into the country through the southern border. From there, it comes to nearly every community in Oregon. "The biggest markets, right now, in Oregon [are] Medford, Roseburg, Salem, Eugene, all the way up to Portland," he says, "We’ll have traffickers that literally will leave Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and just right up the Five and make their stops along the way up to the Canadian border. But those are the major routes that we see on the I-5 Corridor." They also come up Highway 97, hitting Klamath Falls and Bend. Then, he says drugs and money run through all points east and west, north and south.