Authorities in Portland, Oregon, made the biggest fentanyl bust in the history of Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office last week, seizing tens of thousands of pills and powder.

Deputies seized gallon-sized plastic bags of 58,000 fentanyl pills and 16 pounds of fentanyl powder in Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood on Tuesday, the law enforcement agency said in a press release.

(Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office)

They also seized scales, a manual-operated pill press, a commercial-grade pill press, $5,000 in cash, and a stolen handgun, the sheriff’s office said. The handgun had been reported stolen, according to its serial number.

The fentanyl pills and powder would have been worth between $320,000 and $400,000 on the streets of Portland, the sheriff’s office estimated.

The identity of an arrested suspect has not yet been released.

The bust was the result of a months-long investigation by the sheriff’s Special Investigations Unit, which focuses on disrupting large drug trafficking and criminal organizations.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for a wanted man’s car and apartment and watched him walk to a vehicle before taking him into custody “at the opportune time,” the sheriff’s office said.

The second biggest fentanyl bust the sheriff’s office made happened last year when deputies seized 92,000 fentanyl pills and other drugs during a traffic stop.

“One pill can kill,” the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office reminded in its press release.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is cheap to make and easily transported, is about 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Because it is often cut with other drugs, users may often be unaware that they are consuming the powerful substance, which can be deadly even in small doses.

As little as two milligrams of fentanyl weighing the same as a few grains of salt can cause a fatal overdose, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

In a public safety alert, the DEA said that six out of ten fentanyl pills the agency tests contain a potentially lethal dose.

In 2022, more than two-thirds of the 107,081 drug overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids, mostly illegal fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In Portland, a fentanyl crisis is raging where multiple people can fatally overdose in a single weekend. Over the weekend of May 12, police said eight people died of suspected fentanyl powder overdoses.

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As of May 16, Multnomah County had recorded 504 total drug overdose deaths since June 2022, according to the Tri-County Opioid Safety Coalition.

Portland, where many businesses operate, is notorious for open-air drug dealing, public urination, and petty crime. Foot traffic downtown plummeted during COVID and has remained down as businesses struggle from the riots and pandemic lockdowns.

Crime has also spiked in Portland since the pandemic.

Since COVID, shootings in Portland have tripled, homicides have risen from 36 in 2019 to a record 97 in 2022, and car thefts have spiked to 11,000 last year, up from 6,500 in 2019.

The homeless population in Oregon at large, which comes hand in hand with the drug addiction crisis, has increased by 23% in just two years, one of the largest increases in the country.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently said you can’t “have a hierarchy” when asked if climate change is a greater threat to humanity than nuclear war.

Amelia Adams of “60 Minutes Australia” asked Blinken, “Vladimir Putin is threatening nuclear war, and this month we’ve seen the hottest temperatures on this planet on record. What is the greater threat to humanity in your mind, war or climate change?”

“Well, you can’t, I think, have a hierarchy,” Blinken replied. “There are some things that are front and center – the wolf at the door – including potential conflict, but there’s no doubt that climate represents an existential challenge to all of us.  It’s one of the reasons we’re so gratified at Australia’s leadership when it comes to combating climate change; that Australia is stepping up in the way that it sends a very powerful message.  It’s both practical in what Australia is doing, but it also is the symbolism of an important country taking a clear stand and also taking action against climate.”

“So for us, this is the existential challenge of our times,” he said.

Blinken tried to play down the threat that communist China poses to the U.S., saying, “We have an obligation that we feel strongly to responsibly manage the relationship with China. For us as for Australia and many other countries, it’s one of the most consequential and complicated relationships that we have, and you can’t sum it up on a bumper sticker on a car.”

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“There are aspects of the relationship that are clearly competitive, and that’s maybe the main focus,” he continued. “There are areas where we have to contest our differences. But there are also places where we should be able to cooperate if it’s in our mutual interest and actually for the greater good.”

“One of the successes of the relationship between the United States and China going back five decades is precisely that: our – the ability we’ve had to manage the challenges concerning Taiwan,” he asserted.