2 women who bought fatal dose of fentanyl in Mexico for friend sentenced to probation:-According to court records, two women from Colorado were given probation and told to give money to drug-abuse groups after they admitted in November to selling their friend a lethal dose of fentanyl in 2021.
2 women who bought fatal dose of fentanyl in Mexico for friend sentenced to probation
While on vacation in Mexico, 23-year-old Grace Kohler and 24-year-old Elizabeth Brown bought what they thought were oxycodone pills but were actually the dangerous synthetic drug and brought them back into the United States illegally. The women then sold the drugs to a male friend named J.B. in court papers. The next morning, his roommate found him dead from an overdose, according to the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District.
Following their guilty plea on November 29, both women were given their sentences last week. They were charged with a felony of conspiring to bring a controlled drug into the United States from Mexico.
Court records show that Kohler and Brown were given three years of probation and 240 hours of community service in federal court after the victim’s family asked the judge to spare them jail time. The women were also told to give $10,000 to a Boulder, Colorado-based government or non-profit that works to raise awareness about and stop drug abuse.
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Women believed fentanyl pills bought in Mexico were oxycodone
Kohler and Brown both stated that they bought the pills for their friend while on vacation in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, in August 2021.
According to the plea deal, the women texted and called their friend while they were at the pharmacy, and the friend told them to buy oxycodone. Kohler paid $300 for 30 oxycodone pills that the pharmacy and its workers said were there. The friend who asked her to buy the drugs later reimbursed her.
Putting the pills in multivitamin packages was how the women hid them from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. A few days later, they flew back to Denver. As soon as they got off the plane, they drove to Boulder to give their friend the drugs.
Boulder police were called to the man’s house the next morning because his friend found him dead in his bedroom.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the other 29 fake pills were found. They were marked with the letters “M” and “30” and didn’t look like oxycodone pills at all. The pills in the bag did not contain oxycodone as promised; instead, a lab test showed that they contained fentanyl.
An autopsy showed that the man died from taking too much fentanyl.
The fentanyl overdose crisis is very bad, and this sad death is just one example of it, said U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan in a statement. “We will keep working with law enforcement to make people more aware of this deadly poison and stop it from being sold.”
What is the fentanyl crisis?
Law enforcement and drug addiction experts agree that fentanyl is the main drug causing the ongoing overdose crisis in the U.S. This epidemic started about ten years ago with people abusing prescription opioids.
Newest federal figures show that the number of drug overdose deaths has gone up from 2019 to 2021. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says that more than 70,000 people died of a fentanyl overdose in 2021, which is twice as many as died of a drug accident in 2019.
It is already 2024, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says that more than 20.9 million fentanyl pills have been discovered.
During the crisis, some people have asked for more help for drug treatment centers, while others want the production of illegal fentanyl that is brought into the US to be slowed down even more. Most recently, Grammy-nominated rapper and country singer Jelly Roll, who used to sell drugs, spoke in front of Congress in January in support of a bill that would punish drug cartel leaders and money launderers who trade fentanyl.
“Over the years, more illegal drugs and drugs with fentanyl have come into the United States,” said Commander Nick Goldberger of the Boulder County drug task force, which helped with the probe. “Unfortunately, we have seen incidents of overdoses and tragically we have also had deaths occur.”