DENVER (AP) — In a matter of seconds, a tiny blue pill disguised as a prescription painkiller can kill a person with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
The drug is so powerful that amounts as tiny as a few grains of salt are deadly.
Parents of Colorado high school and college students who have died after taking the synthetic opioid call it murder.
But tracking the source of the pills could take months.
And holding a drug dealer accountable for another person’s death could take even longer — if it happens at all — as law officers try to gather enough evidence to file charges, The Colorado Sun reports.
U.S. health officials say an estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year. That's a total the nation has never seen.
