Fentanyl is used to manage severe chronic and post-surgical pain. As a pharmaceutical, prescribed in lozenges or transdermal patches, it is 10 to 50 times more potent than morphine.
But, increasingly, a powdered form of the drug that is 200 to 2,000 times more potent is being mixed with heroin or passed off as heroin to unwitting users.
“If the heroin-acclimated person buys what they think is heroin and it’s a mixture of fentanyl or even pure fentanyl, they’re done,” says New Hampshire’s Chief Medical Examiner Thomas Andrew, whose office released a final tally of 2014’s drug-related deaths this week. “Because they are going to inject the amount they are used to injecting.
“It’s public enemy number one now.”
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