NEWS

Dangerous cancer drug on the rise in Louisville

Beth Warren
Louisville Courier Journal
Pills of fentanyl mixed with heroin
  • Fentanyl is between 25 to 40 times more potent than heroin and 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine.
  • Kentucky law enforcement seized fentanyl in 232 cases in 2014.
  • The scope of illegal fentanyl and its death toll locally is unknown.

Fentanyl is a powerful drug used to ease pain for cancer patients, but it's becoming a popular Louisville street drug more dangerous than heroin, police say.

“It’s obviously here," said Louisville Metro Police Lt. J.T. Duncan of the Narcotics Major Case Unit. "And we’re going to see more of it.”

Fentanyl or its mixture with heroin led to more than one-third of all overdose deaths in Kentucky during the first three-quarters of last year, according to preliminary findings by the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. Thirty-two deaths in Jefferson County and 240 statewide were blamed on the drug or a mixture, said Van Ingram, the office's executive director.

"Kentuckywide, this has been a problem for a while and we’re starting to see it in Louisville," said Ashley Webb, director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Control Center of Kosair Children's Hospital.

The Commonwealth ranked No. 6 in the nation for fentanyl drug seizures by law enforcement in 2014 with 232 cases, while Indiana was 10th with 133, according to an October health advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Eighty percent of all confiscations came from Kentucky, Indiana and eight other states, with Ohio in the lead with 1,245 seizures and more than 500 overdose deaths, according to the CDC's website.

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The synthetic opioid is legally used for cancer patients and soldiers on the battlefield, but it is being manufactured illegally overseas.

It's between 25 to 40 times more potent than heroin and 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the DEA's threat assessment report. It's also cheaper, often produced in laboratories in Mexico, so suppliers or dealers sometimes mix it with heroin to increase their profits – multiplying the risks for the user without their knowledge, police say. The mixture, which has also been imported from China, is sometimes referred to as China White.

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“It greatly increases the risks of overdose and death," Webb said.

The scope of illegal fentanyl and its death toll here is unknown. Police often conduct field tests for heroin but don't always detect a mixture. And hospitals treating overdose patients test for opioids in general but haven't routinely checked for fentanyl.

“There’s probably a lot more deaths due to fentanyl than what we have recorded,” Webb said. "And now that we know to test for it, we’re seeing more of it."

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More than 700 deaths nationwide between late 2013 and late 2014 were blamed on the drug or a mixture of fentanyl and heroin or other diluents, according to a national heroin threat assessment by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA responded by issuing a nationwide alert in March calling fentanyl a threat to public health and safety.

The drug comes in many forms: patches placed on the skin, lozenges put on sticks resembling lollipops, or in a liquid that users sometimes hide in e-cigarettes, police said. It can also be injected, inhaled or chewed to hasten its euphoric effects.

“We’ve been expecting it for at least a year and a half" after other cities reported spikes, Duncan said.

Police discovered several thousand dollars worth of illegal fentanyl during a November arrest and feared there could be a lab, Duncan said. Investigators have not discovered a local manufacturing site, but the case is still under investigation.

Officers in other states have been affected by merely touching or breathing the drug's dust during police seizures, including some who overdosed and had to be revived with naloxone, an opioid antidote, Duncan said.

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“It’s a very fine powder and can be released in the air," Duncan said. "It’s like breathing in dust.”

In March, the DEA cautioned that fentanyl is causing significant problems across the nation at numbers not seen in a decade. More than 1,000 deaths, primarily in Eastern states and the Midwest, were blamed on fentanyl from 2005 to 2007 in what federal officials labeled "the last fentanyl crisis," according to the DEA.

Reporter Beth Warren can be reached at (502) 582-7164 or bwarren@courier-journal.com. She's on Twitter at @BethWarrenCJ