Parents arrested after 2-year-old ingests ‘rainbow fentanyl’ in Northern California, authorities say
(CNN) — An elementary school in a northern California town is investigating why two kids were sent home from school Thursday with what a school resource officer called a “rainbow fentanyl mixture.”
Bella Vista Elementary School sent two students home Thursday from a class designed to teach kids about “the dangers of fentanyl,” a liquid drug that causes a high in some users.
The incident occurred after students, some of whom were home-schooled, were given the drug, officials said.
“It was like somebody took their food away from them,” school district spokesman Matt Wiebe said.
The students, ages 11 and 12, were sent home from an assignment involving a series of activities designed to show children how they can identify what fentanyl is and some of the ways a drug overdose can occur.
The drugs involved in the incident included methamphetamine, cocaine and a substance called “rainbow fentanyl,” which Wiebe said could look like regular fentanyl, but with a blue-tinted color. And there was also a white powder that resembled cocaine, Wiebe said.
“It was a mixture of all three,” Wiebe said. “I don’t know if the kid ingested the whole thing. I don’t know the dose. That’s why we’re looking at the parents.”
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The schools are looking internally and at parents but are not seeking the involvement of law enforcement, Wiebe said.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is made up of 50 percent morphine and 50 percent the opioid fentanyl. In high doses, the opioid fentanyl can cause people to stop breathing and die.
Fentanyl, an opioid 40 times stronger than morphine, is one of the most-powerful drugs and is 50 times stronger than heroin. Fentanyl is used in an estimated 2.5 million heroin and fentanyl drug overdose deaths in the United States each year,