Fentanyl Risks to the General Public

Police have been warning drug users about the dangers of the potent opiate fentanyl.
 
The opiate fentanyl is a pharmaceutical prescribed to people with extreme pain, often late stage cancer patients. But now it’s on the streets and drug users are disguising it and police want to make sure you don’t fall for the trick.
 
It’s a drug 100 times more powerful than morphine and it’s hitting our streets, often mixed with other drugs.
 
“Deaths have been people who thought they were taking heroin which is certainly deadly enough,” says First Step Recovery Clinical Director, Patti Senn.
 
And people are getting hooked. The addiction usually starts with opiate painkillers.
 
“They eventually migrate when that source gets cut off because the doctors won’t give it anymore they migrate to heroin use,” says Narcotics Unit Supervisor, Lt. Shannon Ruziska.
 
Before the drug’s spike, Ruziska only saw fentanyl in the form of a patch. 

Now you can find it in powder form and since it mixes with liquid drug, users are hiding it in just about anything.
 
“If they’re using a nasal spray and they don’t have a cold, using eye drops a lot and they don’t normally use eye drops, there may be something more to it,” says Lt. Ruziska.
 
What’s worse is that the drug absorbs through the skin, putting just about anyone at risk.
 
“Bad enough when the users are being exposed to this drug but [there’s] inadvertent exposure by a family member who is just trying to help someone through their addiction,” says Lt. Ruziska.
 
“To put it into perspective, most pain killers are prescribed by the milligram or about the size of a pin head. Fentanyl is prescribed by the microgram which is 1,000 times smaller than this.”
 
“The pharmacies get those doses exact, but the street dealers, you’re trusting him to do it,” says Lt. Ruziska.
 
“You don’t find many long-term heroin users and certainly no long-term fentanyl users unfortunately because eventually an overdose is very likely,” says Senn.
 
Unlike morphine, which can take minutes, fentanyl hits the brain in a matter of seconds, upping the high and upping the addiction.

An addiction that many times isn’t stopped until it’s too late.

Fentanyl is a lot cheaper to make and transport than heroin.

Ruziska says most of the fentanyl coming into our community is from out of the country.