Bill in Washington Senate targets presses for fake pills

OLYMPIA — A bill targeting people using pill presses to make fake pills that contain controlled substances had an executive session this week in the Washington Senate after passing in the House last week.

“The industrious monsters making and pedaling these fake pills are playing Russian Roulette with all lives,” said Rep. Dan Griffey R-Allyn, a co-sponsor of the bill.

A release by Griffey’s office states House Bill 1209 would make knowingly having or using pill presses with the intent to make counterfeit pills a Class C felony under state law.

Fentanyl traffickers use fentanyl powder and pill presses to produce pills that resemble popular prescription opioids, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, and other popular prescription drugs, such as alprazolam, a 2019 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration states. It also said that in many cases, the colorings, markings, and shape of the counterfeit controlled prescription drugs were consistent with authentic prescription medications, meaning users might not be able to differentiate fentanyl-containing pills from authentic prescription medications.

“These bogus pills look like the real deal down to the federal number imprinted on them, and just one can be deadly,” Griffey said.

Fentanyl remains the primary driver behind the ongoing opioid crisis, with fentanyl involved in more deaths than any other illicit drug, the DEA report states.

The release by Griffey’s office said the fake pills are causing record overdoses because the fentanyl is synthetically made — not regulated as medical fentanyl is — so both the purity of the synthetic fentanyl being made and the amount of it packed into fake pills varies wildly. That leaves the person taking the fake pill in the dark about how potent the pill they are about to swallow is and whether taking just one will kill them.