Heroin Laced With Fentanyl

While heroin is a commonly known drug, you might’ve heard lately about heroin laced with Fentanyl, yet not know much or anything about Fentanyl. Here is a description:

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, meaning it is made in a laboratory but acts on the same receptors in the brain that painkillers, like oxycodone or morphine, and heroin, do. Fentanyl, however, is far more powerful. It’s 50-100 times stronger than heroin or morphine, meaning even a small dosage can be deadly.

Fentanyl can be produced in illegal laboratories, which means, for the foreseeable future, availability won’t decrease through government regulation. This synthetic opioid is very, very powerful, so it makes a dangerous drug like heroin much more dangerous and deadly. It only takes a small amount of Fentanyl to increase the effects of heroin and cause overdose. Even scarier, some drug dealers are selling a combination of heroin, Fentanyl and cocaine.

Those who buy heroin on the street and start using heroin laced with Fentanyl are at a much higher risk of overdose and death — the drug user becomes dependent on how much Fentanyl is used, their tolerance and other physical factors that in combination can create overdose. It sounds perverted, but a drug dealer might increase business if someone overdoses and dies from heroin laced with Fentanyl, because, on the street, the word of a powerful heroin/Fentanyl mix will likely create a buzz of interest as users seek greater highs. In the experienced user’s mind, they’ll think they can handle the more powerful mixture and that those who died were neophytes.

As congress begins decreasing the amounts of opioids doctors can prescribe, a certain number of patients who’ve become addicted to opioids, but need the drug for management of chronic pain, will seek drugs from alternative sources – if they begin buying synthetic opioids on the black market, this will increase the number of deaths, not lower the number of deaths. I don’t think drug addiction will respond to regulation — it can be treated, though. Heroin laced with Fentanyl is nothing to play with. The entire opiate/opioid addiction epidemic will only get worse until society decides to take action to find fundamental solutions.