(The Center Square) -- The California National Guard announced this week that the Golden State’s troops seized 1.2 million fentanyl pills in just the month of October, bringing the total amount seized this year to more than 3 million pills, or 5,174.99 pounds of the drug.

The more than 1.2 million fentanyl pills the National Guard seized in October were the most of any amount of fentanyl seized in any other month this year, according to a Dec. 3 press release issued by CalGuard.

“Our California National Guard servicemembers have answered the call to help Californians time and again -- taking on illegal drug operations, strengthening our wildfire resilience, and stepping up for families who need support during the holidays,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in the press release. “We thank them for their continued service and commitment to the people they serve.”

The governor’s office wasn’t available to respond to The Center Square before deadline on Thursday.

In total, the confiscated fentanyl is worth more than $6.45 million, according to CalGuard. Troops who are assigned to specialized narcotics teams receive $30 million in state money allocated from the state’s 2022-23 general fund, according to CalGuard and the state’s 2022-23 budget summary. Approximately $15 million was disbursed to CalGuard during the 2022-23 funding cycle and the other $15 million was disbursed in the 2023-24 funding cycle.

That money is meant to assist CalGuard and local law enforcement agencies throughout the state combat fentanyl trafficking, and is bolstered by an additional $7.9 million during 2022-23 and $6.7 million a year each year since that is allocated to the Department of Justice to combat the state’s fentanyl crisis.

That crisis, according to the 2025 State of Public Health Report, compiled by the California Department of Public Health, resulted in the deaths of thousands of people in 2022, the latest year for which numbers were available. Approximately 6,095 people died of fentanyl overdose-related deaths in 2022, and 7,786 emergency room visits. Adults between the ages of 25 and 44 made up the bulk of opioid-related and fentanyl-related deaths, and has been found to be mixed or used with other drugs, the California Department of Public Health found.

A California Department of Public Health fact sheet about fentanyl and opioid use and overdoses in California from 2022 to 2023 shows that opioid-related deaths, which include fentanyl-related deaths, rose 11.2%, 16.6 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2022 to 20.8 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2023.

Preliminary data released by the department in October 2025 shows that between August 2024 and July 2025, 4,266 deaths from fentanyl were recorded in the state. That accounts for 50.79% of all the deaths recorded in that data. Approximately 8,400 deaths were reflected in that data from fentanyl, other opioids, prescription opioids excluding synthetics, heroin, synthetic drugs excluding methadone, psychostimulants with abuse potential and cocaine between August 2024 and July 2025.

Staffers at the Department of Public Health were unavailable to answer questions on Thursday.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2022 found that six out of 10 fentanyl-laced fake prescription bills commonly available on the black market contained potentially lethal dose of fentanyl, according to a DEA press release.

“This marks a dramatic increase – from four out of ten to six out of ten – in the number of pills that can kill,” said Anne Milgram, the administrator of the DEA, in that press release “These pills are being mass-produced by the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel in Mexico. Never take a pill that wasn’t prescribed directly to you.”

Milgram warned in that press release against taking pills from friends or buying pills on social media.

“Just one pill is dangerous and one pill can kill,” Milgram said in the press release.

Counties throughout the state have issued their own warnings and statements about the dangers of fentanyl. San Joaquin County, Marin County, Santa Clara County and Sacramento County, among others, touted the dangers of taking fentanyl, launched programs to reduce fentanyl use among young adults and encouraged the use of the life-saving medication Naloxone.

“This is the decisive action Californians expect," Senator Suzette Martinez Valladares, R-Santa Clarita and and Vice Chair of the Assembly Health Committee, said in an email to The Center Square. "Every pound of fentanyl seized isn’t just a statistic -- it’s a life potentially saved and a family spared unimaginable heartbreak. I’m grateful to the California National Guard and our law enforcement heroes, and we must ensure they have the resources to keep our communities safe.”

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, was unavailable to answer questions on Wednesday.

According to Santa Clara County, fentanyl is a powerful opioid drug used to treat severe pain, like that experienced after surgery. However, the drug can be 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine -- making it easy to overdose, the county says.

“Fentanyl is impacting our communities, especially young people: Since 2018, it's killed 237 people under 30 years old in Santa Clara County,” the county’s website states. “Nationwide it's involved in 4 out of 5 Gen Z drug deaths.”

The announcement about the use of CalGuard to conduct drug operations involving the confiscation of fentanyl comes after Newsom's uproar about President Donald Trump federalizing 4,000 troops from California's National Guard to carry out civilian law enforcement operations during protests in cities in Southern California earlier this year.

Newsom criticized the move by the Trump administration, saying the federalization of California's National Guard troops hurt the state's efforts to seize fentanyl at the California-Mexico border. The Trump Administration renewed the federalization of those troops until February 2026, according to a press release from Newsom's office.