The DEA sent a letter to online retailers selling pill presses on Monday, informing them that they must report sales of these presses to the DEA.
Pill presses are often used to mask the deadly opioid fentanyl by copying existing prescription drugs, according to the DEA. These duplicate pills are then sold to people who often have no idea they are purchasing fentanyl. These pill presses are easy to find online and cost as little as $40. This has partly contributed to the scourge of drug overdoses over the past few years, with 110,757 overdoses recorded in 2022 alone, according to the DEA.
“Using these tools, criminals are able to produce pills that appear to be legitimate prescription drugs, such as oxycodone, Xanax and Adderall, but are not,” the DEA said. “These pills actually contain fentanyl and other deadly drugs. Criminals then sell these pills on social media and in our communities, often to people who are unaware that the pills are not real or contain deadly drugs.”
The DEA implicitly stated that under the Controlled Substances Act, e-commerce retailers responsible for selling these pill presses must keep records of everyone who purchases and sells the presses and are also required to report this information to the DEA.
“DEA has discovered that pill presses and stamps that can be used to manufacture fentanyl pills are being sold on various e-commerce platforms. E-commerce entities selling pill presses are typically controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act, 21 USC § 802(38) “Regulated persons” under the Act and, therefore, are subject to the recordkeeping, identification and reporting requirements of 21 USC § 830,” the DEA said. “As regulated entities, e-commerce platforms must comply with the CSA’s recordkeeping and reporting requirements regarding the distribution, import and export of pill presses. This means they must collect buyer and seller information and notify the DEA of any sales, imports, exports or transfer circumstances.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says the vast majority of these counterfeit drugs are produced by two specific Mexican drug cartels. The U.S. government has put increasing pressure on Mexico in recent years to curb the flow of fentanyl, including the fentanyl disguised in these counterfeit pills, across the U.S.-Mexico border. Even after signs were posted across Sinaloa that appeared to indicate cartel authorities were banning the production and sale of fentanyl, fentanyl overdoses and seizures showed no sign of slowing down.
“The drug cartels primarily responsible for manufacturing and smuggling fentanyl into the United States are the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel. These cartels, their members and associates, and other drug traffickers are using pill presses to convert fentanyl into Ni powder is compressed into pills and stamps are used to imprint marks and logos on these pills during compression,” the DEA said.
According to the DEA, more than 79 million counterfeit pills containing fentanyl were seized in 2023, a 33% increase over the number of pills seized in 2022. DEA laboratory testing showed that 70% of the pills seized were compressed pills containing fentanyl. In 2022, 70% of all drug overdoses were also caused by the ingestion of fentanyl.
“Drug traffickers are killing Americans by selling fentanyl hidden in counterfeit pills that look like real prescription drugs. This is possible because drug traffickers are able to purchase the tools they need, such as pill presses and stamps, online,” said the Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram said. “E-commerce platforms cannot turn a blind eye to the fentanyl crisis and the sale of pill presses on their platforms. They must do their part to protect the public, and if they don’t, the DEA will hold them accountable.”
The DEA said it launched an industry liaison program in 2019 and communicated with more than two dozen of the largest online retailers about pill press sales on their websites. They said several companies, including Amazon and Etsy, have completely banned the sale of pill presses on their platforms. However, as evidenced by the hyperlink I added at the top of this article, there are still dozens of pill presses for sale on Amazon. I also spent about five seconds on Google and found several pill presses for sale on Etsy.