Fentanyl deaths linked to heroin soar in Kent County, MI
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) – A highly-addictive painkiller called fentanyl is now being used in conjunction with heroin, helping push overdose deaths in Kent County to a new high.
About 38 percent of the 67 confirmed overdose deaths in Kent County last year are due to heroin or fentanyl, according to numbers from the Kent County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We’ve seen a great increase in the amount of fentanyl cases in the last year,” Kent County Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Cohle said. “It’s really spiked upward. It’s cheaper and more readily available than heroin.”
The numbers mirror a national trend, which led the Drug Enforcement Administration to issue a public safety alert three weeks ago.
“Drug incidents and overdoses related to fentanyl are occurring at an alarming rate throughout the United States and represent a significant threat to public health and safety,” DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said.
Heroin laced with fentanyl can be up to 100 times more powerful than morphine and between 30 and 50 times more powerful than heroin, Leonhart said.
Law enforcement seizures of illegal drugs containing fentanyl more than tripled between 2013 and 2014, with more than 3,300 submissions made to state and local police laboratories for analysis last year. Federal agents in November seized about two pounds of fentanyl that had been transported to Grand Rapids from New York. Investigators also seized several pounds of heroin outside a 28th Street SE hotel as part of the same investigation.
The growth in heroin use in recent years is helping spur use of narcotics with similar properties, such as fentanyl and methadone. In 2013, methadone was the leading cause of prescription overdose deaths in Kent County. Nationwide, it accounted for nearly one-third of all fatal overdoses – a six-fold increase over the last 10 years.
Methadone was introduced 75 years ago to wean addicts off heroin. It is widely prescribed as an inexpensive pain killer. Fentanyl arrived in 1959 and was used as an anesthetic and pain reliever. About 20 years ago, the fentanyl patch was developed and prescribed to treat chronic pain in patients suffering from cancer.
Both are now used in conjunction with heroin – and with deadly results, Cohle said. Part of the reason is cost. Methadone and fentanyl are relatively inexpensive. And with the cost of heroin rising because of demand, people are looking for a cheap alternative.
Dealers are also cutting heroin with fentanyl, and usually without the user’s knowledge, Cohle said.
“Those individuals who are packaging it have begun in the last year to add significant quantities of fentanyl to it and sometimes substituted the fentanyl for heroin,” Cohle said. “I don’t think the drug user can tell the difference so it makes it convenient for these suppliers to do so.”
Like methadone and oxydodone, fentanyl is classified by the federal government as a Schedule II narcotic, meaning it is tightly regulated. An estimated 6.6 million fentanyl prescriptions were written in 2014 , the DEA said. In addition to patches, fentanyl also comes as a lozenge.
Fentanyl goes by several street names, including China white. In the past, abusers would chew the adhesive patches or put the patches on their skin beneath clothing. Addicts are now more likely to inject it.
“The route of administration has changed,” Cohle said. “So people can even take patches off or from someone else and either chew them, they can subject them to water and try to leach out the fentanyl and inject it or they can just use the patches themselves. They could put multiple patches on themselves.”
Cohle said he performed an autopsy last year on a man with dozens of patches stuck to his body, including the victim’s genitalia. “I’d never seen anything like it,” he said.
This is not the first time law enforcement has seen a spike in fentanyl-laced heroin. Between 2005 and 2007, the DEA reported more than 1,000 people died from overdoses in Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit. Much of the fentanyl was arriving in the U.S. from Mexico. The national outbreak 10 years ago did not impact Grand Rapids, Cohle said.
Filed under: General Problems
and the Darwin Award goes to…..
Fentanyl and methadone being used because they are cheaper than expensive heroin? Stop the press! Every other report I have read says that addicts are turning to heroin because it is so INEXPENSIVE and readily available, and PRESCRIPTION meds are hard to find on the street and when they are the prices are incredibly high, as much double what they cost just a couple yrs ago. So which is it? U can’t have it both ways……….
The report used a site named erowid.org as a reference.[courtesy: erowid.org @ 0:20 second mark] in upper left hand corner.
I went looking for information on heroin w/ added fentanyl on erowid. Most every thread on fentanyl was about abusers experiences using the drug, mostly the patch version. 2 examples below-One started not only w/ criminal acts, but ones incredibly cruel, sad, and shocking. The author/addict stealing ‘LOADs of ‘ hydrocodone, morphine, and finally a fentanyl patch from his father who has cancer. This info is expressed as casually as if he was picking up milk from a convenience store.
“My dad was diagnosed with cancer in his lymph nodes and had to have lots of chemotherapy and surgery. He was prescribed a number of drugs including Hydrocodone, concentrated Morphine Sulfate, and Fentanyl. I had already used his morphine and loads of his hydrocodone and was looking for a new experience. So I decided to take one of his Fentanyl patches”
In another thread:
(after chewing a 50mcg patch)….”The next thing I realize is that I’m in the ER with a tube down my throat and I learned that my body stopped breathing and my body was without oxygen for 3 minutes”
My conclusion? A very interesting source of information for a news organization to use for ‘exclusive’ reports.
At end of the news report there is mention of a woman in possession of 2 POUNDS of fentanyl. The same fentanyl that is so potent it is measured out in micrograms/MCG rather than mg. I am no math wiz but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this would most likely be enough to supply half of the heroin addicts in the country for at least a year, no?
2.2 lbs= 1 kilo. Another tidbit that leads me to believe, like Dr Ibsen, its origin is most likely NOT from this country (definitely not from any legitimate patient).
Yes most of it is illegally coming from Mexico. I did find a website selling it from China and a whole forum discussing how much water one would need to dilute this guys quantity of powder down to inject himself safely…that discussion was a couple of years old….so this isnt old product among addicts…unlike the media and DEA would want one to believe
[…] https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=9991 […]
So: this is not fentanyl from your doctor-it’s from Mexico, right?