Heroin overdoses are become more and more prevalent. But the fact that it’s sometimes cut with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine, makes the issue even more concerning.
Partially because of where the abuse of fentanyl came from.
“Patterns of abuse actually began with hospital workers, anesthesiologists and nurses,” Dr. Neil Capretto, an addiction physician at the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Aliquippa, Pa. told NPR. “There were a rash of [health specialists] dying from overdose. You’d hear of them getting it in the operating rooms by drawing out fentanyl from vials and putting saline in its place.”
Once fentanyl in the form of patches became available to the public, many more started abusing the drug.
As NPR reported:
Today, drug dealers are adding fentanyl to heroin because it creates an intense high. Between 2005 and 2007, more than 1,000 U.S. deaths were caused by fentanyl-heroin overdoses, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Seizures of drugs containing the painkiller jumped from 942 to 3,334 between 2013 and 2014. In March, the DEA issued a warning on fentanyl as a “threat to public health and safety.”
Illegal drug labs are beginning to make the drug, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“Drug dealers are in the business of making money and I’ve heard it’s very easy to make, so that means they can save money [by doing it themselves],” Capretto said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were real Walter Whites out there. Chemists and pharmacologists can turn to the dark side, just like in Breaking Bad.”
Photo: Flickr user amir
