The synthetic opioid fentanyl accounted for more than half of the fatal overdoses in Connecticut last year. Fentanyl killed 479 people in the state, more than ten times as many as in 2013.
WSHU’s Davis Dunavin spoke to a Yale doctor who treated one of several mass hospitalizations last year tied to fentanyl.
Three people died and more than a dozen were hospitalized in that outbreak. It came from a batch of cocaine laced with fentanyl – it can also be laced into heroin. Dr. Gail D’Onofrio says she’s worried the state could see another mass hospitalization the next time drug dealers decide to lace their product with fentanyl.
“It’s obviously much more economically advantageous for them, because they can sell very small amounts for the same amount they would sell for heroin. It’s scary, and that’s really worrisome.”
Fentanyl is so powerful that even a tiny amount can be deadly. In fact, 11 police officers were poisoned just from breathing it in secondhand during a raid in September. And people who ingest it rarely know it’s fentanyl. D’Onofrio says that’s one thing that makes it dangerous.
“They don’t know how much to take. It’s such a small ratio between what is giving them that euphoric feeling, and what will kill them.”
Governor Dannel Malloy has proposed some measures designed to cut back on opioid abuse, including more training for doctors on how to prescribe opioids and how to track their use. Prescription opioids can be a gateway to drugs like heroin. D’Onofrio says it’s the right step, but it won’t necessarily stop someone right now from using a potentially deadly batch of heroin or cocaine.
