Production Company Donates Prop Pill Press To Oklahoma Bureau Of Narcotics

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics plans to put good use to a prop it received from the television series 'Tulsa King.'

The show, which was filmed in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, donated a pill press to the bureau.

One of the show's producers called the bureau and asked if they wanted the working pill press to prevent it from ending up in the wrong hands.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics said it might seize a pill press but to receive it as a donation, that's a first.

"We said absolutely," said Mark Woodward, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

The commercial pill press was used as a prop in the new series 'Tulsa King' starring Sylvester Stallone.

The production company no longer had a need for it and was concerned that selling the pricey prop meant running the risk of enabling a drug trafficker.

"Certainly, could be valuable out on the streets," said Woodward.

The OBN will use the pill press for training purposes, by helping law enforcement officers know what to look for.

"The likelihood of them entering a home and running across a pill press are becoming more common as we see more of these drug labs showing up here locally," said Woodward. “[I]f you didn't know what to look for, they might walk right past a pill lab in a house and never recognize it as being more than some piece of metal machinery over in the corner of the garage."

Modern pill presses like the one donated are meant for pharmacies.

"They're being purchased off the dark web and even on the legitimate web because there's no law necessarily prohibiting it," said Woodward. "One of the drugs that's causing the most concern for us are these blue counterfeit oxycodone pills that look, side by side, just like pharmaceutical oxycodone but they're nothing but Fentanyl."

Woodward said the machines can mass produce deadly counterfeit pills.

"People are buying the raw Fentanyl from overseas. They're buying these pill presses and stamps and in their own basement are producing thousands of pills an hour and putting them on the streets. So, we're very glad that this is one pill press that will go to a good purpose," said Woodward.