The battle against fentanyl continues to hit North Texas communities hard, even in Collin County, home to some of the safest cities in the country.
“It’s heartbreaking. It makes me sick to my stomach,” said Collin County Sheriff Jim Skinner about the recent headlines out of neighboring community Carrollton where three teens died after taking fentanyl-laced pills.
“I’ve been at these scenes. We’ve had to put people in body bags over a fatal fentanyl poisoning.”
The war on fentanyl, he admits, is a losing one.
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“It’s not a war that we’re winning. The body count tells you that,” Skinner said.
According to the CDC, nearly 107,000 people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2022, including fentanyl poisonings.
Since 2019, Collin County has experienced an 886% increase in fentanyl poisoning deaths, he said.
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Skinner agreed to speak with NBC 5 about his department’s fight against fentanyl.
Skinner points to a cross-county collaborative effort with eight sheriffs where they share manpower and a mission to stop drug traffickers.
The North Texas Sheriff’s Criminal Interdiction Unit has seized over 8,000 pounds of drugs and millions of dollars for or from Mexican drug cartels, he said.
“Our criminal highway interdiction folks are working the highways looking for these ‘cartel soldiers,’" said Skinner.
Last Friday, the team conducted a traffic stop along Highway 75 in Plano and seized about 6,000 fentanyl-laced pills, according to a press release from the CCSO.
Officers arrested Eduardo Reyes, 23, of Dallas.
Reyes also faces federal drug charges, according to a sealed criminal complaint filed Thursday.
The longtime law enforcement officer says Mexican drug cartels are taking advantage of several scenarios.
Skinner says the highly addictive synthetic opioid is easier for drug cartels to make with the help of Chinese dealers and easier to smuggle from Mexico into the U.S. through the “broken border.”
“What’s happening on the border today, affects me here tomorrow,” said Skinner.
Why would drug dealers add fentanyl to drugs if two milligrams could prove deadly?
That’s a question Skinner says they’ve asked cartel members in custody.
“Their answer was: Listen, our goal is to raise addiction. It’s all about the bottom line and if we kill some people along the way, that’s just the cost of doing business,” said Skinner. “That’s not my words, that’s their words.”
In its legal form, fentanyl is used as a powerful pain-relieving drug for some cancer patients.
Drug dealers add it to other drugs like heroin or cocaine as well as counterfeit pills made to look like OxyContin, Percocet, Xanax, or Adderall.
“Every parent that hears your story needs to understand and know: It only takes one pill and it’s over,” said Skinner.
