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Fentanyl-Laced Cocaine Becoming A Deadly Problem Among Drug Users
by Martha Bebinger
Mar, 29 2018 ? (Morning Edition / WBUR) ?
A pipe was the only sign of drug use found near Chris Bennett's body in November. But it looked like the 32-year-old Taunton, Mass., native had stopped breathing and died of an opioid overdose. Bennett's mother, Liisa, couldn't understand what happened. Then she saw the toxicology report.
"I'm convinced he was smoking cocaine that was laced," she says. "That's what he had in his system, [it] was cocaine and fentanyl."
Liisa Bennett was shocked. Chris had developed an addiction to pain pills and then heroin in his late teens but had not used opioids for at least 10 years, as far as she knew. Bennett had warned her son that if he ever used opioids again, he'd be in greater danger of an overdose because fentanyl, an opioid drug more powerful than heroin, was mixed into much of the supply.
"My focus was making sure that he wasn't going to do the heroin that was laced," Bennett says. She never suspected the crack cocaine Chris smoked occasionally would kill him. "Absolutely not."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says fentanyl, which is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, was found in more than half of overdose deaths last year in 10 states including Massachusetts. Now, there's concern as it creeps into cocaine.
Bennett's story echoes those heard on college campuses, where students are snorting cocaine to stay awake or during a campus party, and unknowingly overdosing on fentanyl. Thirty-, 40- and 50-year-olds are celebrating their big birthday with a line of cocaine and keeling over. And regular cocaine users report feeling the expected rush and then falling asleep. If these men and women use cocaine and do not have the opioid reversal drug naloxone handy, sometimes, they don't wake up.
Fentanyl-laced cocaine deaths are a growing concern
It's not clear how many of the nearly 2,000 estimated deaths listed as opioid overdoses last year in Massachusetts represent people who thought they were doing cocaine. The state doesn't register drug combinations found in most bodies after an overdose.
Connecticut does. There, the number of deaths involving cocaine and fentanyl together has increased 420 percent in the past three years. Heroin laced with fentanyl claimed even more lives in Connecticut during that same period.
In Massachusetts, an increasing amount of cocaine laced with fentanyl is changing hands on the streets. State police recorded 199 such samples last year, a nearly threefold increase from 2016 ? but still a small percentage of total cocaine seizures.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says 7 percent of cocaine seized in New England in 2017 included fentanyl, up from 4 percent in 2016. A similar comparison for the U.S. as a whole was not readily available.
Who's adding fentanyl to cocaine, and why?
The DEA's latest National Drug Threat Assessment says adding fentanyl to cocaine is typically for the purpose of "speedballing," which combines the rush of a stimulant, often cocaine, with a drug that depresses the nervous system, such as heroin. It's a dangerous combination in any form ? more so with fentanyl.
But there's speculation that something else is happening in the current surge of cocaine/fentanyl overdoses and deaths.
A dozen EMTs, police officers, physicians and outreach workers contacted for this story describe men and women who were revived after an opioid overdose and claimed they had only used cocaine. So when was fentanyl added and why? There are a few theories.
Some researchers say fentanyl showing up in cocaine looks to be accidental, a product of messy packaging rather than malicious intent. Boston Medical Center epidemiologist
Traci Green says the rise in cocaine/fentanyl deaths she's tracking out of Rhode Island is commensurate with the increase in fentanyl deaths overall.
"It's more of a contamination model rather than one that is malicious or purposeful," says Green, who is also an associate professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology at the Brown University School of Medicine.
But a growing number of law enforcement agents, doctors, recovery providers, and drug users argue for malicious intent. They speculate that cartel leaders are using cocaine to expand the market of people addicted to opioids.
Continued https://www.northcountrypublicradio...ne-becoming-a-deadly-problem-among-drug-users
by Martha Bebinger
Mar, 29 2018 ? (Morning Edition / WBUR) ?
A pipe was the only sign of drug use found near Chris Bennett's body in November. But it looked like the 32-year-old Taunton, Mass., native had stopped breathing and died of an opioid overdose. Bennett's mother, Liisa, couldn't understand what happened. Then she saw the toxicology report.
"I'm convinced he was smoking cocaine that was laced," she says. "That's what he had in his system, [it] was cocaine and fentanyl."
Liisa Bennett was shocked. Chris had developed an addiction to pain pills and then heroin in his late teens but had not used opioids for at least 10 years, as far as she knew. Bennett had warned her son that if he ever used opioids again, he'd be in greater danger of an overdose because fentanyl, an opioid drug more powerful than heroin, was mixed into much of the supply.
"My focus was making sure that he wasn't going to do the heroin that was laced," Bennett says. She never suspected the crack cocaine Chris smoked occasionally would kill him. "Absolutely not."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says fentanyl, which is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, was found in more than half of overdose deaths last year in 10 states including Massachusetts. Now, there's concern as it creeps into cocaine.
Bennett's story echoes those heard on college campuses, where students are snorting cocaine to stay awake or during a campus party, and unknowingly overdosing on fentanyl. Thirty-, 40- and 50-year-olds are celebrating their big birthday with a line of cocaine and keeling over. And regular cocaine users report feeling the expected rush and then falling asleep. If these men and women use cocaine and do not have the opioid reversal drug naloxone handy, sometimes, they don't wake up.
Fentanyl-laced cocaine deaths are a growing concern
It's not clear how many of the nearly 2,000 estimated deaths listed as opioid overdoses last year in Massachusetts represent people who thought they were doing cocaine. The state doesn't register drug combinations found in most bodies after an overdose.
Connecticut does. There, the number of deaths involving cocaine and fentanyl together has increased 420 percent in the past three years. Heroin laced with fentanyl claimed even more lives in Connecticut during that same period.
In Massachusetts, an increasing amount of cocaine laced with fentanyl is changing hands on the streets. State police recorded 199 such samples last year, a nearly threefold increase from 2016 ? but still a small percentage of total cocaine seizures.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says 7 percent of cocaine seized in New England in 2017 included fentanyl, up from 4 percent in 2016. A similar comparison for the U.S. as a whole was not readily available.
Who's adding fentanyl to cocaine, and why?
The DEA's latest National Drug Threat Assessment says adding fentanyl to cocaine is typically for the purpose of "speedballing," which combines the rush of a stimulant, often cocaine, with a drug that depresses the nervous system, such as heroin. It's a dangerous combination in any form ? more so with fentanyl.
But there's speculation that something else is happening in the current surge of cocaine/fentanyl overdoses and deaths.
A dozen EMTs, police officers, physicians and outreach workers contacted for this story describe men and women who were revived after an opioid overdose and claimed they had only used cocaine. So when was fentanyl added and why? There are a few theories.
Some researchers say fentanyl showing up in cocaine looks to be accidental, a product of messy packaging rather than malicious intent. Boston Medical Center epidemiologist
Traci Green says the rise in cocaine/fentanyl deaths she's tracking out of Rhode Island is commensurate with the increase in fentanyl deaths overall.
"It's more of a contamination model rather than one that is malicious or purposeful," says Green, who is also an associate professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology at the Brown University School of Medicine.
But a growing number of law enforcement agents, doctors, recovery providers, and drug users argue for malicious intent. They speculate that cartel leaders are using cocaine to expand the market of people addicted to opioids.
Continued https://www.northcountrypublicradio...ne-becoming-a-deadly-problem-among-drug-users
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
