We’ve all heard the urban legends – drugs that look like candy being handed out to kids for nefarious purposes.

While it’s just a myth, there’s a grain of truth – there are hard drugs that look like candy.

Usually, it’s ecstasy. But a new brand of drug has emerged that’s extraordinarily deadly and looks like colorful candy.

Rainbow Fentanyl.

Last month, the DEA issued a warning for people to be on the lookout for brightly colored pills that could contain Fentanyl. This deadly synthetic opiate is now responsible for some of the highest number of illicit drug overdoses each year.

The DEA’s statement last month read in part, “Rainbow fentanyl—fentanyl pills and powder that comes in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes—is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults. The men and women of the DEA are relentlessly working to stop the trafficking of rainbow fentanyl and defeat the Mexican drug cartels responsible for the vast majority of the Fentanyl that is being trafficked in the United States.”

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.

A 2mg dose of the drug (delivered by prescript in micrograms) is fatal – equal to just about 10-15ml of table salt.

Those myths of “drugs that kill you in just one dose” are a reality with Fentanyl, which causes depression of the central nervous system and can slow breathing, heart rate, and brain death.

While it’s unlikely to be mixed into your kid’s Halloween candy, the DEA wants people and parents, especially on the lookout for children and teens. All it takes to kill with Fentanyl is one badly-measured dose, and the illicit Rainbow Fentanyl kids are trying these days cannot be considered well-measured.

At best, it can cause addiction quickly – and at worst, it can cost a life. Specific forms of Fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin with fatal results, so police urge anyone who believes they have found it to contact authorities and not to touch it with bare hands.