A rash of heroin overdoses reported in the last two weeks in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, has officials concerned the drugs came from the same batch, “likely mixed with either fentanyl or carfentanil,” Harrison Jacobs reports for Business Insider.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, “is 80 to 100 times as powerful as morphine and about 40 to 50 times as potent as pure heroin.”
Carfentanil, frequently used as an elephant tranquilizer, “is 100 times as potent as fentanyl, which makes it roughly 10,000 times as strong as morphine.”
(Map shows driving distances to overdose locations)
Twelve heroin overdoses were reported in rural Mount Sterling, Ky.; five in rural Winchester, Ky., and 10 in rural Southern Indiana.
Huntington, W.Va., next to Kentucky and Ohio, had 27 overdoses. Cincinnati had 36 on Wednesday and 90 last weekend. Also, a man was arrested this week on Interstate 70 in Henry County, Indiana, with 5 pounds of fentanyl.
Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, said “it’s too early to say whether the more potent heroin reported in neighboring areas of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia are from the same source,” Greg Kocher reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
He told Kocher, “When something like this is happening within the same time frame, happening in Cincinnati as it is happening in Mount Sterling, it begs the question about supply routes. Is that where Mount Sterling’s heroin is coming from? It certainly would give some indication of that, but without extensive lab testing there is no way to know.”
“It’s a very scary thing,” Ingram said. “What we see across the country is the drug cartels moving away from heroin and moving toward these opioids they’re going to produce themselves. People think they’re buying one thing and they’re actually buying another. The stuff they’re selling is so powerful. Some of the stuff we’re seeing produced is 50 times more potent than heroin, as if heroin wasn’t bad enough.”
The Rural Blog, which produced this story, is a digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, from the IRJCI, based at the University of Kentucky. The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues is an extension program for rural journalists and news outlets. It takes no positions on issues and advocates only for strong news coverage, responsible commentary and things that make them possible, such as open-government laws. For more information see www.RuralJournalism.org.
