Nearly two decades after drug addiction sent him to rehab as a teenager, 36-year-old Michael Nalewaja had settled into a quiet life in Alaska where he worked as an electrician.

That all came crashing down days before Thanksgiving 2025, when he and a mutual friend unknowingly took a lethal cocktail of fentanyl and carfentanil they may have mistaken for cocaine.

“I heard the word ‘autopsy’ and I literally just collapsed to the floor,” his mother Kelley Nalewaja said, recalling the call she received from his wife. “Even if somebody had been there prepared with Narcan—even if somebody had called 911 in time—he was not going to survive.”

Just when fentanyl seemed bad enough, carfentanil has emerged as an even deadlier threat: a chemical authorities say is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl. It has surged sharply across the United States, killing hundreds of unsuspecting drug users.

The rise coincides with a recent crackdown by the Chinese government on the sale of precursors used to make fentanyl. Those regulations are likely prompting traffickers in Mexico to use carfentanil to boost the potency of a weakened version of fentanyl, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence bulletins reviewed by The Associated Press.

The agency warns, “This white, powdery drug closely resembles other substances like fentanyl or cocaine, but its danger far exceeds that of nearly any other opioid on the street. Carfentanil is a chilling reminder of how the opioid epidemic continues to evolve and introduces new threats at an alarming pace.”

Suddenly the two milligrams of fentanyl that can kill a person now seem like a large amount compared with the 0.02 milligrams of carfentanil that can do the same.

“You’re talking about not even a grain of salt that could be potentially lethal,” said Frank Tarentino, the DEA’s chief of operations for its northeast region, which stretches from Maine to Virginia. “This presents an extremely frightening proposition for substance abuse dependent people who seek opioids on the street today.”

This drug reveals a civilization in which wounded people seek relief, traffickers monetize their pain and suffering only gets worse.

Extreme Danger

A decade ago, carfentanil exploded into the North American drug supply, causing hundreds of unsuspecting drug users to overdose, only to see a major dip after China banned it in 2017.

But the situation has shifted dramatically in recent years.

In 2025, DEA labs identified carfentanil 1,400 times in U.S. drug seizures, compared with 145 in 2023 and only 54 in 2022, according to DEA records viewed by the AP.

Traffickers in Mexico may be experimenting with producing carfentanil themselves, authorities say, while others could be procuring it from China-based vendors skirting the country’s regulations by spamming online forums in other countries with ads for the drug.

Complicating matters for the cartels are the extreme dangers associated with manufacturing carfentanil, Mr. Tarentino said.

“You can’t just dabble in this,” he said. “This is not some mad scientist on Reddit you’re going to get to go out to a rudimentary laboratory in Mexico to make carfentanil.”

People making this drug put themselves at great risk. Powdered carfentanil is especially dangerous if inhaled or if it contacts mucous membranes, and liquid or highly concentrated forms may also be absorbed through skin.

As full-strength fentanyl becomes harder to obtain, traffickers are willing to take the risk, using carfentanil to boost potency and stretch supply.

‘All About Money’

Most people buying drugs on the street are not seeking carfentanil. It is commonly mixed with other illicit drugs or pressed into counterfeit pills such as OxyContin or Xanax, often without the user’s knowledge. Many victims think they are taking cocaine or other opioids and do not realize what they have consumed until it is too late.

The microscopic nature of a carfentanil dose provides logistical advantages for traffickers. Smaller quantities of the drug are easier to conceal and transport across borders than larger volumes of less potent narcotics like heroin or cocaine.

The financial incentive is massive. By substituting carfentanil into the illicit supply, traffickers can dramatically lower their overhead costs while maximizing the addictive qualities and street value of their product.

Ultimately, law enforcement and addiction experts emphasize that the shift toward carfentanil is a calculated financial strategy, with traffickers prioritizing the exponential revenue generated by such a high-yield substance over the extreme risk of fatal poisoning it poses to the public.

In some cases, frequent drug users have become tolerant to fentanyl and are seeking out carfentanil despite the danger, because of the sudden euphoria it promises, explained Rob Tanguay, senior medical lead for addiction services with Recovery Alberta, a health agency in Canada. It appeals to the drug market, he said, because so little of it goes such a long way.

“The toughest part about all of this,” he said, “is that this is all about money.”

Two millennia ago, the apostle Paul identified the main catalyst for such heartless indifference toward human life. He wrote: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is [a] root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (I Tim. 6:9-10).

A desire for money leads people to dark places. Those pushing this drug are monetizing human pain—causing “many sorrows” for their victims, their victims’ loved ones, and even themselves. Were Paul alive today, he would point to the same cause.

Deceptive Progress

Ironically, the surge of a drug so deadly that less than a poppy seed-sized amount can kill a person comes as fentanyl seizures and overall drug overdose deaths continue a multiyear decline.

However, authorities warn that this period of apparent progress may be illusory.

Fentanyl seizures, along with several other illicit drugs, have also dipped. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that fentanyl seizures plunged to about 12,000 pounds in 2025—less than half the amount seized in 2023.

Yet federal law enforcement data and public health reports confirm that, even as illicit fentanyl metrics show improvement, the DEA remains intensely focused on the crisis due to the emergence of even more toxic substances.

In response to this evolving threat, the DEA’s proposed budget recently included a $362 million increase specifically centered on combating cartel-driven trafficking.

“Anyone who takes a pill that is not prescribed to them by their doctor is playing a game of Russian roulette with their life,” stated Sara Carter, drug czar in the Trump administration. “But if those terrorists think they can continue this chemical warfare without consequences, they are wrong.”

Chemical Weapon

While the prevalence of carfentanil still pales in comparison to fentanyl, experts are nevertheless alarmed by the increase of a substance researched for years as a chemical weapon. It was used by Russian forces during a Moscow hostage situation in 2002, which led to deaths among both hostage takers and hostages.

The DEA’s annual quota for lawfully manufactured carfentanil—veterinarians use it to tranquilize elephants and other large animals—is just 20 grams, an amount that can fit in the palm of your hand.

“It’s like a biological weapon,” said Michael King Jr., founder of the Opioid Awareness Foundation. “If the world thinks we had a problem with fentanyl, that’s minute compared to what we’re going to be dealing with with carfentanil.”

In 2024, overdose deaths involving carfentanil nearly tripled compared to the previous year, with 413 deaths across 42 states and Washington, D.C., according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Carfentanil definitely has that potential of spreading throughout the United States unless law enforcement really focuses in on carfentanil and they develop intelligence as to how these drug addicts are getting it,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations at the DEA.

In recent months, the DEA has documented several large seizures of carfentanil. In October, the DEA Los Angeles Field Division found 628,000 pills containing carfentanil, while in September, officials seized more than 50,000 counterfeit M30 pills from a person at a gas station in Washington state that turned out to be a mixture of carfentanil and acetaminophen.

For each shipment seized, authorities worry about the quantities that pass through undetected. Each successful distribution of these pills acts as a deployed weapon in the community.

If that sounds alarmist, ask the parents of carfentanil’s victims—people like Ms. Nalewaja. After her son Michael died, she chose not to hold a large funeral. Instead, she organized a town hall in her hometown of El Dorado Hills, California, bringing together local officials and other grieving mothers who had endured similar loss.

Now, as she mourns a charismatic son who had recently received a national award from the electrical union, she is pressing for major legislative and judicial changes so other families do not suffer what hers did.

“It’s not an OD; it’s not an overdose,” she said. “It’s a murder weapon.”

A Future Drug-Free World

A drug so lethal that less than a grain of salt sized dose can be fatal is terrifying.

The Bible explains that these and other tragic developments are the direct result of a civilization cut off from God. Isaiah 59 explains: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear” (vs. 1-2).

Mankind as a whole has chosen to make its own decisions rather than following God’s way of life revealed in Scripture. The inevitable result is misery and suffering. The prophet Jeremiah observed, “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps” (10:23).

Yet God also promises that a better, perfect world will soon replace the miserable society of today. The Bible calls this “the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). This is what can give us true hope.

Found throughout Scripture, this time of restoration is simply called the Kingdom of God.

In this prophesied wonderful world, the drug crisis will be solved. The illicit supply chains and the violence of cartels will be replaced by a world government that ensures “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,” as the earth becomes “full of the knowledge of the Lord” (Isa. 11:9).

Every physical and mental scar—including the heavy chains of addiction and all the circumstances that have led people to it—will be erased, fulfilling the prophecy that “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick,” because the underlying spiritual causes of their suffering will have been forgiven (33:24).

Until then, families will still receive calls no parent should ever receive. People will still seek relief in substances that cannot heal them. Traffickers will still turn pain into profit. But that Kingdom is coming.

David C. Pack, Editor-in-Chief of The Real Truth magazine, summarized what this time will be like in his book Tomorrow’s Wonderful World – An Inside View!

He wrote: “The world will be a perfect environment for all to begin living God’s Way—the way of peace and prosperity, happiness and joy—according to His perfect law…Humanity will finally be humble and teachable. Everyone will learn God’s truth. There will be no more suffering. Smiles will shine on people’s faces. Crime will disappear. Mass healings will occur. Drugs and alcohol will no longer enslave people.”

To learn much more, read Tomorrow’s Wonderful World – An Inside View!

This article contains information from The Associated Press.