DEA launches campaign to raise awareness about illegal fentanyl

Drug overdose deaths topped 100,000 this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a grim number that exceeds the number of people who died from car crashes and gun violence combined. The main culprit is illegally manufactured fentanyl, which experts say can be 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.

"Fentanyl right now is driving the overdose epidemic that we're seeing in the United States," Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram told "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan. "Fentanyl is a different drug threat than we've seen before. It's synthetic, meaning that it's manmade. It's made of chemicals." 

Milgram talked exclusively to Brennan this week, as she promoted the DEA's One Pill Can Kill campaign to raise awareness about the overdose epidemic. Milgram announced this week that DEA agents have seized an unprecedented amount of fentanyl and fake prescription pills laced with the fatal chemical.