The Rocky Mountain division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 5.8 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl last year in Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming, the agency announced in a news release Monday.

That included almost 2 million pills and more than 150 pounds of powder.

The most recent U.S. census data shows Colorado has just more than 5.8 million residents as of July 2022.

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Across the U.S., the DEA estimates it seized enough potentially deadly doses of fentanyl in 2022 to kill every person in the country. Its nationwide seizures included more than 50.6 million fentanyl pills, more than 10,000 pounds of powder and upward of 379 million potentially deadly doses.

“For the first time in my 31-year law enforcement career, we are seeing an oversaturated drug market. Anyone, including our kids, can buy dangerous and deadly drugs at the click of a button. This is like nothing we’ve experienced before and it makes our jobs as narcotics officers far more challenging and critical than ever before,” the Rocky Mountain Division’s Special Agent in Charge Brian Besser said in the release.

The DEA has been raising alarms about fake prescription pills that contain fentanyl, of which the Rocky Mountain region seized more than 619,000 in 2021. A fentanyl dose the size of a pencil tip can kill.

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The agency asks people to remember legitimate pharmaceutical pills can only be gotten through prescriptions from medical professionals and licensed pharmacies.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recorded 912 fentanyl deaths in 2021. 

A mass fentanyl poisoning that killed five people in a Commerce City apartment in February put Colorado’s fentanyl crisis in the national spotlight. They took what they likely believed was cocaine, according to the Adams County district attorney, and their deaths led to what the DEA believes was the largest fentanyl overdose investigated by the agency at the time. But prosecutors ultimately decided they did not have enough evidence to pursue criminal charges in connection with the deaths.

Colorado’s legislature also passed a controversial law last year making penalties for fentanyl possession stricter. The bill made it a felony to possess more than one gram of any substance containing fentanyl, and also put funding into treatment and overdose prevention.

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