FOND DU LAC, Wis. (WFRV) – A traffic stop in Fond du Lac County that should have resulted in a speeding ticket turned into much more.

According to the Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office, Rip, a K-9 deputy for the office, picked up on a scent during a traffic stop over the weekend. It resulted in crack, crack pipes, and red fentanyl being discovered by the responding deputies.

The fentanyl was dyed red but is not any more potent than the usually white or light-colored fentanyl.

“No more potent than what we’ve been seeing, it’s just as hazardous to our community and to people in the community that are using this very dangerous drug,” Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office Capt. William Tadych said. “People have to know that you have to steer clear of this drug, or it’s potentially going to kill you.”

The fentanyl was dyed red to make it more marketable for sellers and buyers. Tadych says it is disappointing that drug dealers are looking for ways to further their business beyond the drug users already suffering at their doing.

“It’s very disappointing, we know they’re trying to sell their drug, their product, their just looking at a different way to stand out,” he said. “It stands out to the different buyers and users. It’ll definitely stand out from what we’ve been seeing.”

12 grams of red fentanyl were discovered, and that is enough for up to 6,000 lethal doses, Tadych said.

“This individual was on probation, or on parole, so we did a search of his home and found more of this paraphernalia (crack and crack pipes) and red fentanyl at the home as well,” he said. “We work in concert with the area drug unit, and they’re working diligently as we speak to find where this individual got this red fentanyl from.”

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is also working to reduce the fentanyl and opioid crisis.

“Raising awareness about this epidemic is part of what we need to do to prevent addiction from happening, but we also need to get funds to prevent harm from happening to people,” Kaul said, adding that $750 million had been secured to fight the epidemic in Wisconsin.

He was in Green Bay on Tuesday promoting NARCAN kits along with Green Bay Police Department Chief Chris Davis, who said that in the last year, 1,800 NARCAN kits have been given to GBPD. There have been 60 times since then when NARCAN has been used in Green Bay, and 24 times it saved the life of someone experiencing an overdose.

“We’ve seen a huge spike in the prevalence of fentanyl,” Kaul said. “Fentanyl is an incredibly dangerous narcotic, it’s 50 times more potent than heroin, 100 times more potent than morphine, and it’s really driving the spike in opioid-related overdose deaths that we’ve seen.”

While the color of fentanyl may vary, so can the chemicals in it.

“We see a variety of different types of opioids, and that includes fentanyl,” Kaul said. “One of the things our crime lab has seen are analogs of opioids, so chemical compounds that are just slightly different.”

No matter what the fentanyl looks like or consists of, it is all extremely potent.

“Regardless of the type of fentanyl we’re talking about, though, this is a potentially deadly substance,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that people are aware of the dangers that it presents, and that we’re working to disrupt the supply of those narcotics to our communities and ultimately then, in the hands of law enforcement, we’ve got tools like NARCAN that can help prevent an overdose situation.”