Police and drug treatment providers are warning about overdose deaths from a drug called Fentanyl. It's sold in a baggy marked "On Fire."
"If somebody overdoses and dies, then, that's great marketing. People know that that's the stronger stuff, and the users will go search for that," says Dr. Timothy Weigand, Director of Toxicology at Strong Memorial Hospital, a faculty member in the UR Department of Emergency Medicine, and the Medical Director at Heuther Doyle.
Dr. Weigand says a little Fentanyl goes a long way. It is potent and dangerous. Police in Rochester, Webster and Monroe County point to three recent overdose deaths involving Fentanyl sold as or mixed with heroin.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department warns that Fentanyl can be absorbed through skin, inhaled or ingested by mouth and most heroin users are not familiar with it.
"The differences between the two are potency. Fentanyl is very, very potent. A little bit goes a long way, meaning it's stronger than morphine and stronger than heroin."
Dr. Weigand says people are adding Fentanyl to heroin, but it is easy to add too much.
"It's an extremely strong opioid, and both naive users - people that don't have a lot of experience with opiates, with heroin or other opiates; it's easy for them to overdose."
Weigand says Fentanyl is not difficult for underground chemists to produce and a little bit goes a long way. He's also concerned that Fentanyl's being added to cocaine and crack, creating another dangerous combination.
"A kilogram of Fentanyl is millions of doses. It's incredibly potent. So, it goes a long way. So, it's easier, in some senses, for people to add Fentanyl to powder or add Fentanyl to heroin to stretch it and increase their profits and that's what we've seen."
It's even being pressed into pills that look like OxyContin or condone. Weigand says Fentanyl is almost 50-times the potency of morphine or heroin. Weigand says he's treated many accidental overdoses of Fentanyl.
"Just waking up after someone's either doing CPR or has given them the Narcan antidote to wake them up and they would have been dead, if somebody had not been there."
Weigand says users probably have no idea about the strength of Fentanyl.
"The mistakes aren't well, you've used a little bit too much and you'll learn from that. The mistake and the result is that you've used a little bit too much and you're not waking up because you're blue and not breathing. Somebody's found you stiff and where you last used."
And a final warning. Wiegand says Fentanyl is regularly added to heroin by street dealers, but he's seen it added to cocaine and crack around here, which he calls unusual and dangerous.