Federal authorities are no longer treating fentanyl like another street drug. They’re treating it like what they say it has become: a weapon of mass destruction.

Cannabis companies like Tilray Brands and Canopy Growth could soon face a more mellow path ahead following President Donald Trump’s move to help reclassify the drug’s status.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), partnering with nearly 4,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, is holding the 29th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day today, Saturday, Oct. 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Federal agents who typically investigate drug lords, weapons traffickers or cyber criminals have fanned out across the nation’s capital.

Attorney General Pam Bondi traveled to a Drug Enforcement Administration lab to meet with chemists who are tasked with identifying the ever-evolving tactics employed by cartels to manufacture drugs flowing across the southern border.

Justice Department leadership is proposing cutting some offices and dramatically restructuring the department, including combining the two agencies responsible for enforcing drug and gun laws, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press.

Michigan and Metro Detroit law enforcement agencies are sounding the alarm about a dangerous designer drug known as “Pink Cocaine,” or “Tusi,” which has recently surfaced in Warren.

The U.S. on Thursday imposed sanctions on senior members of the armed wing of a Mexican drug cartel that operates on border territories in and around Chihuahua, Mexico.

Donald Trump has signaled support for a potentially historic federal policy shift to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Top executives at a California telemedicine company were arrested for allegedly distributing Adderall online and conspiring to commit health care fraud through reimbursements for the medication.

Longtime U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee says she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is undergoing treatment.

The Justice Department has formally moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift in generations of U.S. drug policy.

Federal prosecutors say a leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons.

Longtime U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has announced she'll seek reelection to Congress in 2024.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced a new government-wide strategy that will target not only fentanyl but precursor materials used to make the synthetic opioid.

The Biden administration is taking aim at the fentanyl trafficking threat, announcing a series of indictments and sanctions against Chinese companies and executives blamed for importing the chemicals used to make the deadly drug.

Washington’s revolving door kept spinning this week as the Drug Enforcement Administration’s recently departed second-in-command returned for another stint with a high-powered consulting firm where he previously advised OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.

When it emerged this week that U.S. health regulators are suggesting that the federal government loosen restrictions on marijuana, the news lit up the world of weed.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has delivered a recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Administration on marijuana policy, and Senate leaders are hailing it as a first step toward easing federal restrictions on the drug.

China is insisting it is up to the U.S. to “create necessary conditions” for anti-drugs cooperation, following complaints from Washington that Beijing is ignoring its calls for a crackdown on precursor chemicals for the highly addictive painkiller fentanyl.

The United States has sanctioned a son of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, three members of the Sinaloa cartel and two Mexican-based firms, alleging they trafficked fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S. Tuesday's sanctions came the day Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador talked with President Joe Biden about immigration and the fentanyl crisis.

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is on April 22 this year and there are plenty of collection sites near you.

The Justice Department has charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation.

The Biden administration is moving to require patients see a doctor in person before getting drugs to treat attention deficit disorders or addictive painkillers, toughening access amid a deepening opioid crisis.

Last year, in Michigan, Ohio and Northern Kentucky the DEA said they seized 280 thousand fentanyl-laced pills and 600 pounds of fentanyl powder.

Federal officials say an increasing number of fake prescription pills containing potentially deadly fentanyl are helping drive overdose death rates to record levels in the U.S. And officials warn that some of the pills are being manufactured in rainbow colors designed to look like candy.

A Colombian national police officer who was part of an elite unit that worked closely with U.S. anti-narcotics agents has been extradited to Miami to stand trial on charges he betrayed the Drug Enforcement Administration to the same traffickers they were jointly fighting.

A nonprofit organization has partnered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to make parents aware of how easy it is for teens to store drugs in plain sight.

Authorities say a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent was killed when a passenger opened fire as officers were doing a routine inspection for illegal contraband on an Amtrak train in Tucson, Arizona.

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent arrested on charges stemming from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is accused of posing for photographs in which he flashed his DEA badge and firearm outside the building while off duty.

A retired high-ranking official with the Drug Enforcement Administration has testified that three large opioid distributors had a “systematic failure” in monitoring suspicious pill orders.

The Drug Enforcement Agency and Detroit Police Department are joining Saturday for something they hope will have an impact far greater than any drug bust.

Opioid drug overdose deaths are down in US, study finds, but COVID-19 could change that. DETROIT – McLaren Health Care Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government more than $7.7 million to resolve alleged violations of provisions of the Controlled Substances Act. McLaren said a pharmacist at its Port Huron retail pharmacy was “diverting opioids for his own personal use” and has since been fired. McLaren said it exited the retail pharmacy business in 2018, adding that the move was unrelated to the federal investigation. The health system has more than a dozen hospitals across Michigan.

DETROIT – Prescription medications can be dangerous and even deadly -- and they’re probably just sitting in your medicine cabinet. The Drug Enforcement Administration laid out reasons for all of us to participate in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, Oct. 24. According to the DEA, the majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained through family or friends, often from their own medicine cabinet. In the past, National Prescription Drug Take Back Day has been very successful. More information can be found on the official National Prescription Drug Take Back Day website here.

NEW YORK – Walmart is suing the U.S. government in a pre-emptive strike in the battle over its responsibility in the opioid abuse crisis. Walmart says it is seeking a declaration from a federal judge that the government has no lawful basis for seeking civil damages from the company. The lawsuit names the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr as defendants. Brown went into private practice in the Dallas areaA spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Texas that handled the investigation referred questions to the Justice Department in Washington. The Justice Department declined to comment.

WASHINGTON – More than 1,500 people have been arrested on state and federal criminal charges in the last three months as part of a Drug Enforcement Administration project focusing on violent crime, the agency’s acting administrator told The Associated Press. Such operations are common for the federal government, but the issue of law-and-order is a major component of President Donald Trump's reelection campaign. The DEA -- under the umbrella of the Department of Justice -- is responsible for investigating major drug cases and international drug smuggling, along with drug gangs who are often responsible for upticks in violence within communities. “By going after the violent crime, we’ve been able to investigate the larger regional groups,” Shea said. “Plus, we’re addressing the violent crime problem in these localities.”

While at the Drug Enforcement Administrations Training Academy, Brown said he was once pepper-sprayed three times in a single training exercise while other trainees were sprayed once. When both responded, the white instructor clarified, “I meant the monkey.”That behavior, as alleged in an internal complaint, didn’t stop there. The instructor also was accused of going on the loudspeaker in the tower of the outdoor firing range to taunt black trainees by making “monkey noises.”“We were like, ‘It’s 2019. That shouldn’t even be a thing that we’re dealing with,’” said Derek Moise, who did not hear the noises himself but recalled the discomfort they caused his fellow Black trainees who did. The recruits who originally accused Mortenson are still employed by the DEA and not permitted to speak publicly about the incidents.

DETROIT Criminals were breaking into Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) registered pharmacies to steal narcotics and sell them on the street. Local 4 Defenders obtained surveillance video from the Crownz Pharmacy in Warren from the early morning hours in June. The Warren pharmacy break in was a part of a string of burglaries committed by a group of individuals working together. The Pharmor Pharmacy on Woodward in Detroit was also targeted, according to the complaint. Hamilton is scheduled to go to trial on Sept. 8 in federal court in Detroit.

DETROIT The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said meth disguised as candy, or child vitamins, is creeping its way into the Midwestern region. This is the first time that weve really seen this, said DEA Special Agent in Charge of Detroit Field Division, Keith Martin. In the last couple months, weve seen these meth pills that look like candy, or some people say they look like Flintstone vitamins, but theyre actually meth pills, Martin said. We do know that the cartels are using the same routes that theyve used for the last hundred years, theyre using the same transportation routes, Martin said. Its dangerous for adults, and its definitely dangerous for children, Martin said.

DETROIT – When Joseph Piersante was shot while working with the Drug Enforcement Administration, his life changed forever. Piersante’s job as a DEA agent took him to Afghanistan as part of the FAST Team. “These drug labs, they (the Taliban) fiercely defend them and there all behind enemy lines.”In 2009, while overseas, Piersante was shot in the head and lost his eyesight. “I had a frontal lobe brain injury because the bullet went to the front of my brain. I had two ruptured eye globes and two detached retinas, in which resulted in the brain injury, resulting in the craniotomy,” he said.

More than medication is being collected during Saturday's National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. For the first time, vaping devices and cartridges also are being accepted for disposal. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration says the change stemmed from concerns across about illnesses and death associated with vaping and the high rate of vaping among young people. More than 1,600 people, many of them teens and adults, have been sickened in a national vaping illness outbreak that appears to have started in March. Now in its 10th year with twice-yearly collections, the administration's Drug Take Back day has collected more than 11 million pounds of expired, unused and unwanted prescription medications.

Tyler Skaggs #45 of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim delivers a pitch in the first inning during a MLB game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre on June 18, 2019 in Toronto, Canada. (CNN) - A top public relations official with the Los Angeles Angels provided oxycodone to Tyler Skaggs, and abused the drug with him before the pitcher died earlier this year, the employee's attorney told CNN on Saturday. ESPN reported that Eric Kay, the Angels' director of communications, also gave the DEA the names of five other players who he believed were using opiates while with the Angels team. "The Angels maintain a strict, zero tolerance policy regarding the illicit use of drugs for both players and staff," he said. Skaggs family attorney Rusty Hardin said the family appreciates the work that law enforcement is doing.

These warning letters come just months after the FDA issued a similar series of warnings to other opioid-selling website operators. The online networks that received the new warning letters, sent earlier this month, are Divyata, Euphoria Healthcare Pvt Ltd., JCM Dropship and Meds4U. The letters call for the website operators to immediately stop illegally selling the opioids to consumers in the United States. We remain committed to using all available regulatory and enforcement tools to stop the illicit flow of opioids online." Warning letters were also sent to dozens of websites last year on two separate occasions.

WJLA via CNNCOLUMBUS, Ohio - One Ohio county had an "unusually high number" of overdose deaths in a little over a day, the county's coroner said. "As of about 10 am this morning we have had 10 people die of overdoses in about 26 hours," Franklin County Coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz said on Facebook Sunday. The last peak of overdoses that the coroner's office posted about was in August 12, when six people died in less than 24 hours. That same year, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a national alert that said "drug incidents and overdoses related to fentanyl are occurring at an alarming rate." In 2017, Franklin County set up a 3-year Opiate Action Plan to combat the opiate epidemic in the state.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating after cocaine was shipped to several stores in western Washington