MARQUETTE — Michigan’s Western District United States attorney is meeting with Upper Peninsula partners to identify and solve problems that are arising in the area.

U.S. Attorney Mark Totten will stop in several U.P. locations this week to build connections with local, federal and tribal partners.

Totten also hopes the visits will include conversations about pervasive problems that lead to legal intervention in the U.P.

“What I want to accomplish while I’m up here is to better understand what the issues are in the U.P. and Marquette specifically, as well as build relationships if there is a crisis,” Totten said.

Totten said narcotics have posed a problem all over the country in recent years.

A U.S. Attorney’s Office report showed a total of 108,000 drug-related fatalities nationwide in 2021.

Totten said methamphetamine and fentanyl are two drugs that present a growing problem.

“The drug landscape over the last several years has really changed in some significant ways and certainly one of them is the substances themselves,” Totten said. “Methamphetamine and fentanyl, both of which are almost entirely produced down in Mexico and shipped up here, really dominate the landscape.”

Counterfeit pills are one of the ways these drugs are sold.

Totten said people who take these counterfeits don’t have any idea what’s in them.

The pills mimic the appearance of prescription drugs such as Xanax, Adderall and OxyContin, he said.

“What makes it so pernicious is that it’s so toxic,” Totten said.

Totten said that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration tests counterfeit pills.

Six out of 10 pills tested contain potentially lethal doses of fentanyl.

The drugs are marketed on social media and tend to be sold on platforms like Snapchat.

“It’s a different era. This isn’t a time where people are sitting on the corner pushing drugs. It’s people getting it through social media,” Totten said. “Everywhere I go, I have these conversations and I’ll have people come up to me afterwards and oftentimes show me a picture of a loved one who died from fentanyl-and it’s really is quite tragic. But its something that with more education can be prevented.”

While Totten’s focus is on the educational side, his office as a whole focuses on the prosecution of drug-related crimes. That in turn disrupts large regional-level narcotics supply lines, he said.

The U.S. Attorney’s office works with a collaborative group of state, federal and local partners, including the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team to focus on those larger drug cases.

“I’ll be quick to say we are not going to prosecute our way out of this crisis, it’s obviously much bigger than that. The solution has to be much bigger than that,” Totten said. “It has to be mental health providers, it has to be harm reduction providers, it has to be parents and community groups. It’s a bigger problem than just a law enforcement problem but that’s part of it. That’s the work we are focused on.”

Totten said the U.S. Attorney’s office is also addressing a rise in online predators.

There’s been an increase in the number of people who are pretending to be someone they are not on social media platforms. He said he knows of people as young as 9 years old who have become targets.

“We’ve seen a rise in a practice called sextortion. This is where a predator oftentimes pretends to be something they’re not. (They then) try to forge a relationship and solicit some type of compromising picture,” Totten said. “I talk about it in part because, like fentanyl, it’s an area where with education, there are ways to try and prevent it.”

People should be wary of interacting with strangers on the internet, Totten said.

It’s never a good idea to send photos to someone you don’t know, even on social media platforms that say photos disappear within a certain time frame.

Totten said it is impossible to determine if a photo has disappeared.

He said the best defense against being victimized online is to talk about it.

“If you find yourself in a situation where you are being extorted, be willing to speak up about it and ask for help,” Totten said. “Law enforcement, my office, the FBI and local law enforcement are ready to help and (are) willing to help and can help in those kinds of situations.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is also charged with protecting the right to vote. That includes protecting those who administer elections, taking on public corruption and more.

One of the cases the office worked was the plot to kidnap and kill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“In our democracy we may vigoursely dispute and disagree about politics and about policy, but violence is never an acceptable means to try to settle those disputes,” Totten said.

To contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office or Totten, visit justice.gov/usao-wdmi or call 906-226-2500 for the Marquette office.