Things are not always what they appear to be at first glance. That is a warning issued by the Lorain Police Department in Lorain, Ohio.

On their Facebook page, the Lorain Police Department explained that they “recently seized pills, later determined to be made of Fentanyl and cocaine, pressed to look like over-the-counter medication.” In one case, the pills were pressed to resemble Tylenol. There was even an attempt to press the word “Tylenol” into the pills. In another case, the drugs were pressed to look like Metoprolol, which is a medication used to treat high blood pressure.

As you can see from the comparison of one of the pills that was seized and pressed to look like Tylenol (on the left) and an actual Tylenol pill (on the right), on close inspection, the pills do not look the same. However, police are concerned that if you’re not looking closely, or if the pill was inside a bottle that was also labeled Tylenol, it may be easily assumed that the pill is really Tylenol.

Lt. Jacob Morris from the Lorain Police Department told Fox 8 that they seized a total of 28 pills that were pressed to look like prescription medication when a lab determined that they were actually Fentanyl and cocaine. He said, “The concerning things is that everything about these pills did in fact look to be genuine and certainly at first glance, especially if you were to encounter them within a pill bottle that were marked with the blood pressure medication or as Tylenol.” 

In addition, police are concerned that these pills that are pretending to be something they’re not are being used to smuggle illegal drugs.

Morris explained, “Clearly, in that this has been seized in the process of two different investigations and with two different substances, two different narcotics, this may be a trend that is somewhat regular or somewhat being used right now to traffic drugs.”

Morris believes that disguising these pills to look like Tylenol and Metoprolol is obviously an attempt to fool the police, but he definitely believes they are intended to trick more people than just the police. For example, these pills could be an attempt to trick parents, teachers, and co-workers.

The biggest concern for the police department is that someone might accidentally take one of these pills believing that they’re taking Tylenol, for example if they have a headache. Morris explained, “The concern for our public is that someone could, in fact, encounter one of these pills and assume, probably reasonably so, that they’re dealing with an over-the-counter medication and upon handling it or ingesting it, become seriously ill or even perish.”

On Facebook, the Lorain Police Department offers the following advice: “always be cautious when handling medication, even if it appears to be over-the-counter medication.”