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Tag: Fentanyl

  • Chinese National Pleads Guilty To Importing Opioids

    Chinese National Pleads Guilty To Importing Opioids

    The businessman would receive large shipments of opioids from China and mail them out domestically.

    A Chinese businessman living in Massachusetts has pled guilty to charges of importing opioids. 

    Bin Wang, 42, was arrested in July and charged with importing shipments of carfentanil, fentanyl and other opioids. Wang would receive large shipments of opioids from China and mail them domestically, including to buyers in Ohio, according to a press release by the Ohio U.S. Attorney’s office.

    On Tuesday, Wang pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to importing and distributing opioids. He will be sentenced on November 13.

    Opioids, particularly powerful synthetics, are reportedly made in China and shipped into the U.S. using couriers like FedEx and even the U.S. Postal Service.

    “Increasingly, the opioids that are killing our friends and neighbors are being sent here from China,” said Acting U.S. Attorney David Sierleja. “Shutting down this pipeline will help in our efforts to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic. We will focus on prevention, education, and aggressive law enforcement, both here and around the world.”

    This requires a new approach to intercepting drugs.

    “The importation of opioids and other synthetic drugs from China has played a significant role in America’s current drug use epidemic. Over 60,000 people a year die from drug overdoses in this country, and halting all methods of drug trafficking—including by way of the Internet—is a top priority of the DEA,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. Plancon. “This investigation makes clear that geographic and technological hurdles will not stop DEA and our partners from bringing to justice those responsible for the illegal distribution of drugs in the U.S.”

    Despite that tough stance, it is reportedly very difficult to catch opioids coming into the country from China. In part, that is because the shipments are small, and the volume of mail coming into the country makes it difficult to pinpoint suspicious packages. In addition, prosecuting Chinese manufacturers can be difficult.

    Officials first started investigating the drugs that led to Wang in 2016, after a series of fatal overdoses in Ohio. They determined that the drugs were bought online through a Chinese website, and that a Chinese man known as “Gordon Jin” was shipping the drugs to Wang in Massachusetts, who then distributed them domestically.

    Undercover agents purchase opioids from Jin, and were able to track the shipments to Wang, who was operating companies from a warehouse in Woburn, Massachusetts.

    “This investigation is a great example of a collaborative effort of federal agencies and a local drug task force working together to identify and track down people and organizations that are responsible for the ever-increasing shipments of very powerful synthetic opiates into Ohio,” said Don Hall, director of the MEDWAY Drug Enforcement Agency.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • HIV Outbreak In Massachusetts Linked To Injection Drug Use

    HIV Outbreak In Massachusetts Linked To Injection Drug Use

    Between 2015 and 2018 there were 129 new HIV cases linked to drug use in two Massachusetts cities.

    Fentanyl use in two Massachusetts cities is driving an HIV outbreak that officials say could be forecasting a national public health crisis.

    Lawrence and Lowell Massachusetts, two cities along the New Hampshire border, have seen such a sharp spike in new HIV cases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has become involved, according to The Huffington Post.

    Between 2015 and 2018 there were 129 new HIV cases linked to drug use diagnosed in the cities. In the four years prior to that there were only 41 new cases of HIV related to injecting drugs diagnosed annually in the entire state.

    “This tells us we cannot rest on our laurels,” said Thomas Stopka, an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. “There are potentially other communities that are at great risk as well. HIV can and is raising its head again in places where risks align.”

    In 2015, opioid injecting was linked to an HIV outbreak in rural Indiana. The risk factors in the Massachusetts outbreak are similar, but in an urban setting. One risk is pervasive fentanyl use. Because the synthetic opioid has a shorter half life than heroin, users inject more often. This means they have more opportunity to be exposed to dirty needles.

    In addition, neither city had a needle exchange program before the outbreak, although both have since established exchanges. Finally, high rates of homelessness compound health risks, as does the fact that doctors don’t routinely screen for HIV, even among intravenous drug users.

    “This may be forecasting what could conceivably happen around the country,” said Amy Nunn, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Health Institute.

    This spring, epidemiologists from the CDC spent time in Lawrence and Lowell to try to establish why the outbreak was occurring. They presented their findings in a meeting on July 24.

    “The most striking finding was the sheer number of cases,” said Stopka “[It] was substantially higher than what was seen in years prior.”

    The number of new drug-related HIV cases “definitely caught a lot of folks’ attention and really spoke to the great need in terms of a response,” he said.

    Most of the new cases were among white men ages 20-39, men like Mark, a 29-year-old who injected drugs before finding out that he was HIV positive.

    “We all use,” Mark said. “We all know the other one has it. We don’t tell each other. People will lie right to your face about having it. It’s spreading around like wildfire.”

    Stigma around HIV — even among drug users — keeps them from disclosing their status even if they know if. In addition, the draw of a high can cause people to put their health on the back burner, Mark said.

    “People just don’t care,” he said. “When it comes down to it, if you’ve got a bag in your hand and somebody next to you’s got a dirty needle, you’re not going to run and find a clean one.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Police Chief Allegedly Overdosed On Drugs Stolen From Evidence Room

    Police Chief Allegedly Overdosed On Drugs Stolen From Evidence Room

    The 35-year-old died two months after being appointed part-time police chief.

    An Ohio police chief who died in May of a fentanyl overdose allegedly swiped the drugs from his own department’s evidence room, according to local reports. 

    Kirkersville Police Chief James Hughes had only been on the job two months when he was found unresponsive in the bathroom of his Reynoldsburg home. Nearby, officials said, were three syringes—one empty and two filled with fentanyl. Authorities also recovered a bag that tested positive for cocaine. 

    The part-time police chief died a short time later, and in July the coroner officially deemed the cause of death a fentanyl overdose, according to the Newark Advocate.

    The larger Reynoldsburg Police Department investigated the fatality, and last week Lt. Ron Wright revealed where he apparently got the fatal dose: the village police evidence room. 

    “There was packaging that indicated that he was taking controlled substances from there,” said Wright, according to the Advocate. It’s not clear if that could impact any ongoing cases. 

    The 35-year-old was appointed to the 500-person village’s 20-hour-per-week job as top cop on March 13, during a two-minute council meeting. Almost a year earlier, then-chief Eric DiSario was shot to death in the line of duty during an incident at a local nursing home, according to WSYX. His replacement, Jeff Finley, resigned abruptly in early March, citing disagreements with the mayor. 

    Though village council members didn’t offer any comment to the local media on it, Hughes had a troubled past before his appointment as chief. 

    During the 14 months he previously worked at the local sheriff’s office, internal affairs investigated him three times. Once, he resigned after six months, though he was later rehired working at the jail. 

    “I believe that Deputy Hughes needs to think before he acts,” one supervisor wrote in a 2012 performance evaluation, according to the Newark paper. “Deputy Hughes is known to make bad decisions on and off duty.”

    A few months later, Hughes notched up a misdemeanor conviction for a drunken incident at a nearby fast food restaurant when he spit at a drive-through worker and called her a “bitch.” 

    Once Reynoldsburg police wrap up their investigation of the chief’s death, they’ll likely forward the case to state authorities, Wright said. 

    “It’s kind of gone beyond our level. You’re talking about another agency’s property room,” he said. “We think the state should probably intervene.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Nurse Pleads Guilty To Stealing Fentanyl from Hospital

    Nurse Pleads Guilty To Stealing Fentanyl from Hospital

    According to police, the nurse admitted that she had initially stolen the fentanyl for her husband before she started using it herself.

    A North Carolina nurse has admitted that she stole fentanyl from the hospital where she worked, first for her husband and later for personal use. 

    Hayley Lammon Brown, 29, was working at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when the theft occurred, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.

    This week, Brown entered a guilty plea in Forsyth Superior Court to one count of embezzlement of a controlled substance by an employee, and was given a suspended sentence of eight to 19 months and placed on three years of supervised probation. She was also charged with assault of a police officer after an officer was exposed to the drug, and she is appealing her guilty plea in that case. 

    During sentencing, Judge Ed Wilson said that Brown needs to get treatment, although it was not court-ordered. “You’re either going to spend the rest of your life in prison or you’re going to die if you don’t do something about this,” he said.

    Authorities first came into contact with Brown in April 2017 when they responded to an overdose at Brown’s home. At the time she told police that her husband had bought the medication online.

    However, officers found two vials of hospital-grade fentanyl at the home. At that point, the local police department asked for assistance from the FBI. 

    John Keane, special agent in charge with the State Bureau of Investigation, interviewed Brown, and she admitted that she had been stealing fentanyl from the hospital beginning in 2016. She said that she first took the drugs for her husband, before she started using them herself. 

    When the hospital learned of Brown’s alleged theft, it did a three-month audit of her use of medications and found discrepancies in how she handled fentanyl. The hospital fired her and the North Carolina Board of Nursing suspended her nursing license. Brown later voluntarily gave up her license for a year, but after that she will be eligible to have her license reinstated. 

    Although fentanyl is at the center of the opioid epidemic and has become a popular street drug, it does have legitimate medical use.

    However, because of its potential for abuse it is carefully regulated in hospitals. Novant Health, which owns the hospital where Brown worked, has policies in place to avoid abuse, the company said. 

    “Novant Health has detailed policies that demand strict adherence to all federal, state and local regulatory requirements as well as the organization’s ethical standards and policies,” the health care network said in a written statement.

    “We take very seriously any allegation that the organization or any individual team member has not fully complied with or in some way violated regulatory requirements, including the mishandling of controlled substances.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Video: Activist Pours Fentanyl On Hands To Dispel Exposure Myth

    Video: Activist Pours Fentanyl On Hands To Dispel Exposure Myth

    Chad Sabora performed the experiment to reassure first responders that may be reluctant to perform CPR in the early moments of an overdose.

    Harm reduction experts are pushing back on what they believe is a dangerous myth circulating among emergency responders and the general public.

    Illicit fentanyl and its analogues are increasingly contaminating batches of heroin sold on the street, and contributing to skyrocketing overdose rates. Thanks to naloxone, people experiencing an opioid-related overdose have a fighting chance—if first responders get to them in time.

    There is a growing belief, however, that risk of exposure to these powerful synthetic opioids is so high that mere contact with an overdose victim’s sweat—or even inhaling a small amount of powder—is enough for a potentially fatal amount of the drug to get into the bloodstream.

    If true, first responders fearing exposure might be reluctant to perform CPR during the critical early moments of an overdose, so Chad Sabora, Executive Director of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Advocacy (Mo Networks), decided to perform an experiment to reassure them.

    Sabora, in a video he posted on Facebook, took a bag of street heroin that he confirmed through a strip test contained acetyl fentanyl and carfentanil, poured the powder in his hand and waited.

    Moments later, the naloxone standing nearby stayed in its box, unused, and Sabora appeared to be exhibiting no signs of an overdose.

    “[This is] the same dope that has caused ‘overdoses’ in first responders,” Sabora told The Fix. He obtained the tainted batch from one of the participants of Mo Network’s syringe exchange and naloxone distribution programs, known as a “second-tier exchange,” where an active heroin user brings sterile needles and overdose reversal kits to hand out on the street.

    Sabora is the first person to attempt to deliberately overdose in order to show that the risk to first responders may be an overblown and even dangerous myth. As a former prosecutor and someone in long term recovery himself, Sabora brings a unique perspective to his work in advocacy.

    “This belief is validating people that don’t want to rescue users. I used to be in law enforcement, I know it’s a very difficult job, but we have to bring balance through education and awareness while still respecting the job they’re doing,” he said.

    Last spring, journalist and The Fix contributor Zachary Siegel, dedicated the entire first episode of Narcotica, a podcast he co-hosts, to dispelling the myth that fentanyl or its analogues can cause an overdose through skin absorption.

    “I spent weeks researching this phenomenon for [the episode]. Every toxicologist, pharmacist, physician, and researcher I spoke with said hands down, illicit powdered fentanyl is not skin-soluble,” Siegel tweeted.

    A lethal dose for fentanyl in humans is around 3 milligrams, so appropriate precautions are certainly recommended for anyone who may come in contact with the drug.

    But in a position statement published in the journal Clinical Toxicology by the American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, the task force authors concluded that for inhalation exposure risk, “At the highest airborne concentration… an unprotected individual would require nearly 200 minutes of exposure to reach a dose of 100 mcg of fentanyl.”

    And for dermal exposure risk, “it is very unlikely that small, unintentional skin exposures to… [fentanyl] powder would cause significant opioid toxicity…”

    Sabora hopes the video will make an impact, but he admits, “there’s not much more I can do, but between myself, writers like [Siegel], and a lot of others out there, we’ll keep doing our best to hammer the truth home.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Relapse During Probation Grounds For More Jail Time, MA Court Decides

    Relapse During Probation Grounds For More Jail Time, MA Court Decides

    Eleven days after her probation began, Julie Eldred tested positive for the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

    Individuals on probation can face great consequences if they relapse, according to a Massachusetts court. The decision was made Monday, July 16 by the top court in Massachusetts, the New York Times reported. 

    The case that this decision stemmed from was one that had been being monitored closely by “prosecutors, drug courts and addiction medicine specialists.”

    The case was brought forward by 30-year-old Julie Eldred, who, in 2016, was convicted of larceny for stealing jewelry. She was given a year of probation with up to 30 months in jail if she violated conditions, two of which were to enroll in treatment and stay drug-free.  

    According to the Times, Eldred did enroll in an outpatient program, where she began taking Suboxone, a medication which can decrease opioid cravings and curb symptoms of withdrawal. Soon after, Eldred asked her doctor for a stronger dose. 

    Then, 11 days after her probation began, she tested positive for fentanyl, the Times notes. Because no inpatient treatment placement could be found and Eldred’s parents were out of town, the judge decided to send Eldred to a medium-security prison for 10 days. There, she did not receive Suboxone and went through withdrawals.

    “The judge was faced with either releasing the defendant and risking that she would suffer an overdose and die or holding her in custody until a placement at an inpatient treatment facility became available,” Justice David Lowy wrote in the court’s decision. 

    During the case proceedings, the defense made the argument that because substance use disorder is a “chronic, relapsing brain disease,” making it difficult for a person to simply stop using drugs.

    The prosecution countered that substance use disorder varies by individual in terms of intensity. They also argued that many people can overcome the disorder and that consequences and rewards, such as jail time or a clear criminal record, can motivate individuals to stop using.

    The seven justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court stated that Eldred should have brought up the potential issues with her probation conditions earlier in the circumstances, when the argument could have been made in front of a trial judge instead.

    Lowy stated that judges have the responsibility of determining probation requirements while keeping the goals of rehabilitation and public safety in mind. He wrote that judges “stand on the front lines of the opioid epidemic” and are “faced with difficult decisions that are especially unpalatable.”

    According to Eldred’s lawyer, Lisa Newman-Polk, the court “rubber-stamped the status quo, dysfunctional way in which our criminal justice system treats people suffering from addiction.”

    The Massachusetts attorney general’s office agreed with the court’s ruling.  

    “We are pleased the Supreme Judicial Court today affirmed a court’s ability to take an individualized approach to probation that encourages recovery and rehabilitation to help probationers avoid further incarceration,” said a spokesperson for Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, according to the Times.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • CDC Director: I Almost Lost My Son To Fentanyl

    CDC Director: I Almost Lost My Son To Fentanyl

    “It’s important for society to embrace and support families who are fighting to win the battle of addiction—because stigma is the enemy of public health.”

    The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told a private audience last week that the opioid crisis hits close to home for him because his son nearly died after taking cocaine contaminated with fentanyl.

    “For me, it’s personal. I almost lost one of my children from it,” Dr. Robert Redfield Jr. told the annual conference of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, according to CBS News and the Associated Press.

    The AP saw a video of Redfield’s speech, which was given on Thursday in New Orleans. According to AP researchers, Redfield’s 37-year-old son was charged with possession in 2016, but the outcome of the case was not public record.

    Redfield declined to discuss the incident more in depth, but he did release the following statement: “It’s important for society to embrace and support families who are fighting to win the battle of addiction—because stigma is the enemy of public health.”

    During the speech, Redfield was outlining his priorities for the CDC. He said that since becoming director in March, the opioid crisis has been a top priority because it is “the public health crisis of our time.”

    Dr. Umair Shah, the head of Houston’s county health department, said that Redfield’s admission was a powerful statement. “It was definitely an intimate moment that grabbed the audience of public health professionals,” said Shah, who just finished a term as president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

    “It was a close-to-home story, and he spoke quite personally,” Shah told The Washington Post. Shah said that it’s relatively uncommon for healthcare providers to talk about their own personal experience with public health issues, but that doing so can be a powerful way to connect with patients.

    “We don’t want to be seen as too vulnerable or too unprofessional,” Shah said. “And here he is sharing such an intimate story.”

    Redfield’s background is in infectious disease and most of his professional work has been done around HIV, a condition that was stigmatized in much the same way that addiction is today.

    Once isolated to the heroin supply, fentanyl is increasingly being used to cut other drugs, including cocaine. In addition, fentanyl is increasingly being abused on its own, rather than being mixed with other drugs. In 2016, the drug was found to be present in 46% of opioid-related overdose deaths.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Nation's First-Ever Execution Using Fentanyl Halted

    Nation's First-Ever Execution Using Fentanyl Halted

    A New Jersey drug company filed a lawsuit claiming the state had tricked a drug distributor into selling one of the drugs to be used in the execution. 

    What could have been the nation’s first-ever execution using fentanyl was called off Wednesday, after a New Jersey-based drug company filed suit over the planned use of one of its drugs in the Nevada death house.

    After months of begging for death and waiving appeals, double murderer Scott Dozier was scheduled to die by lethal injection using an untested three-drug cocktail in what would have been the state’s first execution in more than a decade. 

    “I think it’s awesome. I mean, it’s killing people all over the place,” he told VICE News before his unwanted last-minute reprieve. “You guys get pharmaceutical grade fentanyl and just bang me up man.”

    But the courts intervened, after drugmaker Alvogen accused the state of using “subterfuge” to secure one of the drugs in spite of the company’s insistence that it didn’t want its product used in “botched” executions.

    It appears to be the first time a pharmaceutical company has successfully stopped an execution, experts told the Associated Press. 

    The challenge comes as death penalty states across the nation have struggled in finding ways to carry out their most severe punishment, sometimes switching methods or drugs as pharmaceutical companies become increasingly reluctant to see their drugs used in executions. 

    The current Nevada execution protocol—newly implemented after previous drug stocks expired—includes the controversial sedative midazolam, the opioid fentanyl and the paralytic cisatracurium. Midazolam has been linked to allegedly botched executions in Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama and elsewhere.

    In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Alvogen said the state had tricked drug distributor Cardinal Health into selling them midazolam by having it sent to a pharmacy in Las Vegas instead of to the prison, according to CBS News.

    “While Alvogen takes no position on the death penalty itself,” the company wrote in court filings, “Alvogen’s products were developed to save and improve patients’ lives and their use in executions is fundamentally contrary to this purpose.”

    A state solicitor general pushed back against the lawsuit, saying Nevada didn’t do anything wrong and regularly has its drugs shipped to Las Vegas. 

    This wasn’t the first controversy Nevada faced over its execution drugs. Last year, Pfizer asked the state to return any drugs it planned using to kill prisoners—but prison officials refused. And this year, another pharmaceutical company voiced objections to the use of its drugs in lethal injections, though they didn’t take the step of filing a legal claim. 

    Dozier’s death sentence stems from a 2002 slaying when he lured 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller to the Las Vegas strip in order to rob him of $12,000 that he planned to buy ephedrine with, one of the ingredients needed for making meth. After shooting Miller in the head, police say Dozier let him bleed out in a bathtub before dismembering him, stuffing his torso and some limbs into a suitcase, then tossing it in a dumpster. 

    Afterward, Dozier’s friends started coming forward with tips about the case. One even told police he’d spotted a body holding its own head inside Dozier’s hotel room. A jailhouse snitch alleged that he’d helped Dozier bury a man in the middle of the Arizona desert in 2001—and he led investigators to a dismembered body. Dozier was convicted in the Copper State case before he was transferred back to Nevada to stand trial for the would-be meth-maker’s slaying.

    While in jail for the Arizona murder—one in which he still maintains his innocence—Dozier tried killing himself by overdosing on antidepressants, which landed him in a coma for two weeks.

    “I’m not looking for mercy,” he told the Marshall Project. “Nevada said stop behaving this way or we will kill you, and I kept behaving that way.”

    So, in 2016, he penned a letter to the judge, waiving his appeals and begging for execution. So-called “volunteers” are a death row rarity, and Dozier’s gregarious pursuit of death attracted national attention. 

    Now, it’s not clear when he might face another death date, though a Clark County judge this week scheduled a hearing for September.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Narcan Administered At Record Pace In Boston

    Narcan Administered At Record Pace In Boston

    New city stats reveal that there were over 3,000 “narcotic-related illness” ambulance trips in 2017.

    In 2017, Boston’s first responders ran thousands of ambulance trips and administered Narcan for opioid overdoses in record numbers.

    New statistics revealed that Boston not only has a rising opioid epidemic in its own population, but that opioid use in the visiting population has risen alarmingly.

    According to the Boston Herald, Boston Emergency Medical Statistics revealed 3,557 “narcotic-related illness” ambulance trips to city hospitals in 2017—up from 2,848 in 2016.

    Twenty-nine percent of Boston’s narcotic-related ambulance trips were for patients who reported living outside Boston, EMS numbers show; this is a staggering 58% jump over 2016.

    Police and medical experts warn that 2018 could be just as bad with no signs that the drug epidemic is letting up. Boston police think it could be cheap heroin luring people with addiction to use in Boston.

    State police spokesman Dave Procopio told The Boston Herald that the drug fentanyl is increasingly laced into heroin to increase dealers’ profits.

    “Some users are actually seeking out fentanyl because it’s more potent,” said Procopio. He noted that the State Police Detective Unit for Suffolk County reported that a majority of current overdoses involved fentanyl.

    The Fix reported that some medical experts are seeking another avenue for reviving patients who have ingested fentanyl. The drug is so powerful that Narcan often does not work effectively.

    “Compounds like fentanyl, carfentanil, and other synthetic opioids act for longer periods of time,” said Dr. Roger Crystal, CEO of Opiant. “The concern is that naloxone’s half-life doesn’t provide sufficient cover to prevailing amounts of fentanyl in the blood.”

    Patients who overdosed with fentanyl in their system often have to receive multiple injections of Narcan over a period of time to be revived.

    Dr. Paul Biddinger, director of the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told The Boston Herald of the increasing number of Boston overdoses. “We don’t know what the cause is. The cost? Fentanyl? Unfortunately, it’s not going away for a while,” he said.

    The city of Boston reported that funds acquired to address the opioid epidemic are going to be put to use in the Boston Post-Overdose Response Team, or PORT. The program will be expanded and its hours increased.

    Paul Biddinger encourages “families, loved ones, even bystanders” to obtain and learn to use Narcan to save overdose victims.

    Of course treatment is necessary for recovery, but Narcan saves the person’s life so that they are here to participate in that recovery, he says.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Fentanyl Use Rising Across The US

    Fentanyl Use Rising Across The US

    The potent synthetic opioid has been showing up more on its own, rather than mixed with other drugs.

    The use of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid said to be 50 times as potent as heroin, is growing on both a local and national level, according to new research.

    A new analysis, conducted by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) researchers, found that fentanyl was present in nearly 50% of overdose deaths in Marion County, Indiana in 2017. This is a significant increase compared to less than a decade prior, when fentanyl was present in fewer than 15% of overdose deaths.

    “We found fentanyl present in 47% of cases,” said Brad Ray, assistant professor at IUPUI’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. “That’s nearly half of every single person that dies of a drug overdose. That’s far outpaced heroin.”

    These numbers mirror national statistics. In May, the Journal of the American Medical Association published research that showed that of the 42,249 opioid-related deaths in the United States in 2016, almost 46% involved fentanyl. Six years prior—similar to the IUPUI research—fentanyl was involved in just 14% of opioid-related deaths.

    The IUPUI research also found that over time, the potent opioid has been showing up more on its own, rather than mixed with other drugs, according to the Indy Star. When fentanyl first emerged as a threat to public health, it was said primarily to be used to boost the potency of heroin and other drugs.

    A previous study by IUPUI’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs from 2017 reported an association between tighter opioid restrictions and an increase in opioid-related deaths.

    Researchers looked at prescription data from Indiana’s prescription drug monitoring program and analyzed that alongside toxicology data from the Marion County Coroner’s office, which tracks the specific substances involved in each drug-related death. With that, they found an “alarming trend”: the prescription drug crackdown occurred alongside a “considerable” rise in heroin and fentanyl overdoses.

    “As people move away from pills, they do move on to heroin,” explained Ray, who was the lead author of that study. “It’s a cheaper substance to purchase but it’s much more dangerous because you don’t know what’s in it, you don’t know how much to take.”

    Ray went on to say that a lack of treatment options in Indiana exacerbates the issue.

    View the original article at thefix.com