Overdoses From Illegal Fentanyl on the Rise in the U.S.

You expect to hear about heroin overdoses and deaths from crack cocaine, but it is surprising to hear about a prescription drug being widely available on the street and being misused to the point of death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,013 Americans have died after overdosing on an illegal version of the powerful painkiller fentanyl. Published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, the report on fentanyl focused on the overdoses that were fatal between April 2005 and March 2007.

Fentanyl is a very powerful synthetic opiate analgesic that is similar to morphine but is more powerful. Fentanyl is usually used to treat patients that have severe or chronic pain, or to help with pain after surgery. It is also an alternative to opiates, making it an option for people who cannot tolerate or behelped by opiates. The prescription form of fentanyl is also known as Actiq, Duragesic, and Sublimaze. When a doctor prescribes it, it is also administered by transdermal patch, injection, or in the form of a lozenge.

Drug dealers on the streets of America are selling the drug illegally in powder form. The fentanyl was also mixed with heroine and cocaine and sometimes it is used as a replacement for heroine. This mixture of the fentanyl and other illegal drugs can cause effects such as coma, euphoria, nausea, confusion, unconsciousness, addiction, drowsiness/respiratory depression and arrest and sedation.

On the street the drug has many names: China girl, dance fever, Apache, friend China white, Murder 8 jackpot, TNT, good fella, Tango, and Cash. Thirty to fifty times more powerful than heroin, users are oblivious to its strength. As a matter of fact, the report showed that many of the people were found with the needle used to inject the drug still in their arms for not having completed the injection because of the drug's powerful effect.

The report states, "One gram of pure fentanyl can be cut into approximately 7,000 doses for street sale. Manufacture of (fentanyl) requires minimal technical knowledge, and recipes for making (fentanyl) are available on the Internet."

The highest number of deaths that have been recorded was registered in Chicago (346), followed by Philadelphia (269), Detroit (230), St Louis, Missouri, and the states of New Jersey and Delaware. The number of deaths began to lower after the police shut down the operation making fentanyl in Toluca, Mexico in May of 2006.

The report's lead author and a retired officer of the CDC public health services, Dr. Stephen Jones, said, "I think this is an extraordinary episode of fatal drug overdoses. But it's go to be recognized as part of the bigger problem of the increasing numbers of drug overdose deaths in the United States."

In 2005, the number of deaths from drug overdoses rose from 11,155 up to 22,448. The shocking factor is that the powerful painkilling drugs play a very important role in these deaths. Jones also added that this is the worst outbreak of fentanyl deaths in the U.S. that occurred in the 1980s, which included approximately 110 overdoses that were fatal.

Jones stated that the evidence is still an "incomplete picture" since it only gathered from the cases that were reported in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and the states of New Jersey and Delaware. The number of people that are dying because of overdosing on fentanyl in the US could possibly be higher that what is in the report filed now.