Dutch Institute Warns of Lethal Trump-Shaped Ecstasy Pills as White House Touts 22% Drop in Fentanyl Deaths

A pill with the president's face, and a warning label to match

The Trimbos Institute, a respected Dutch drug addiction and mental health body based in Utrecht, issued a "Red Alert" this week after testing ecstasy pills shaped like President Trump's head, according to the Associated Press. Several of the pills were handed in at the institute's national drug-checking network, which spans 34 testing locations and 12 participating organizations across the Netherlands.

The pills came back positive for para-methoxymethamphetamine, or PMMA, at what the institute called a "very high" concentration. PMMA resembles MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, but works slower and often lacks the stimulating rush users expect. Someone who thinks their first pill didn't work may take a second, unknowingly stacking a dose that can cause overheating, seizures, loss of consciousness, convulsions and heart problems, per the institute.

"Absolutely do not use these pills," Trimbos said flatly. The pills feature Trump's face stamped on one side and "NL" and "Trump" on the other, separated by a score line, in at least two color variants: one green-faced, one yellow.

Trimbos spokeswoman Anniek Groothuis told the AP the institute has no confirmed cases of serious illness or death tied specifically to these pills. "We do not know of any victims where PMMA was found in their blood," she said. The warning is preventive, based on lab testing of surrendered pills, not a body count.

Ecstasy is illegal to make, sell or use in the Netherlands, but enforcement hasn't stopped demand. A 2024 Dutch government report cited by the AP put annual ecstasy use at roughly 550,000 people, concentrated around clubs and festivals.

Novelty-shaped Trump pills aren't new. German police seized thousands of orange, Trump-head-shaped tablets in Osnabrück in 2017, and Indiana State Police found similarly shaped orange pills stamped "Great Again" in 2018, according to the Journal.ie. Novelty branding on illicit pills is a known trend in the ecstasy trade regardless of who's depicted. It doesn't indicate anything about the drug's origin or the person whose likeness gets used.

Meanwhile, a very different Trump-and-drugs story in Washington

On National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day, which fell on Aug. 21, the Trump administration gave Fox News Digital an exclusive set of figures it says shows real progress against the opioid crisis. Synthetic opioid deaths, which the CDC classifies to include fentanyl, fell from 48,913 in 2024 to 38,084 in 2025, according to CDC data cited by the White House, a drop of more than 10,000 deaths. Total drug overdose deaths fell 14%, from 81,313 to 69,973, over the same period.

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis credited the administration's border crackdown, pressure on cartels, and ICE arrests of fentanyl traffickers. "These policies delivered a 22% decline in opioid deaths in a single year," she told Fox News Digital. The administration also cited a 45% drop in nationwide fentanyl seizures in fiscal year 2025 and DEA testing showing 29% of seized fentanyl pills carried a potentially lethal dose, down from 76% two years earlier, which officials said reflects disrupted trafficking networks.

In a separate interview with Fox's Trace Gallagher, Trump said maritime drug smuggling into the U.S. had dropped 97% under his border policies and asked why other outlets weren't covering it. That 97% figure came from the president himself in the interview, not from the CDC or DEA data the administration otherwise cited.

The numbers on overdose deaths are real CDC figures and the year-over-year decline is genuine. The release lacks independent public-health analysis isolating how much of that drop is attributable specifically to border and cartel enforcement versus other factors, such as wider naloxone availability or fewer first-time users, that also affect overdose trends nationally. The fact that total overdose deaths (14%) fell by less than synthetic opioid deaths alone (22%) suggests multiple categories of drug deaths moved together, which is consistent with a broad national trend and doesn't by itself confirm the administration's causal claim, though it doesn't rule it out either.

Neither story is connected to the other beyond the coincidence of timing and the president's name. Dutch authorities have not linked the ecstasy pills to any American drug network, and the White House's fentanyl figures make no mention of Europe's club-drug supply. The open question on the Dutch side is whether Trimbos's testing network turns up more of these pills before festival season winds down. On the U.S. side, the next data point to watch is whether the CDC's own forthcoming provisional overdose reports, when published independently of any administration framing, confirm the same trajectory the White House is currently touting.