poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
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Fentanyl: The silent killer creeping into Australia
IT HAS caused thousands of deaths in the United States and Canada, and authorities must act now to stop the zombie drug claiming Australian lives.
FENTANYL is a silent killer creeping into regional Australia.
ABC reporter Lucy Barbour recently sat with a young woman while she prepared a shot of the high-strength opioid behind closed doors in a country town.
“Some people wake up and have breakfast. I wake up and have a shot,” the woman said.
“That’s my breakfast.”
The drug is commonly prescribed to people with cancer and chronic pain, and it’s legally sold in Australia in slow-release patches that cost a few dollars each.
However, the black market is thriving.
In April, the Australian Border Force (ABF) deployed officers to cyberspace to combat increased trade in synthetic drugs like Fentanyl on the Dark Web, where a single patch can be resold for up to $100.
The move followed a dire warning from their American counterparts that Australia could be heading for an overdose epidemic.
“Fentanyl has caused a large number of deaths across North America over a number of years and we fear it could result in a similar toll here as a result of its potency,” ABF boss Roman Quaedvlieg told News Corp at the time.
Iain Cartney, a pharmacist from Bairnsdale in eastern Victoria, said he knows of at least eight deaths caused by Fentanyl sold in his pharmacy this year.
“We have a father who is actually going without his medication because his son is taking them and onselling them,” he told the ABC.
“It worries me to death.”
Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2017, released last week, shows opioid-related overdoses have almost doubled in the 10 years from 2005 to 2015.
Shockingly, more Australians are now dying from overdoses than car accidents.
More than 20 per cent of them were from Fentanyl, or similar synthetic drugs.
Queensland was hardest hit, with a “nineteen-fold” increase in Fentanyl-related deaths, while deaths increased eight times across the country.
The trouble with Fentanyl is its extreme potency.
It’s said to be 50 times stronger than heroin, and 1000 times more potent than morphine, and is commonly referred to as a “zombie drug”.
Cont -
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...SF&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=Facebook
IT HAS caused thousands of deaths in the United States and Canada, and authorities must act now to stop the zombie drug claiming Australian lives.
FENTANYL is a silent killer creeping into regional Australia.
ABC reporter Lucy Barbour recently sat with a young woman while she prepared a shot of the high-strength opioid behind closed doors in a country town.
“Some people wake up and have breakfast. I wake up and have a shot,” the woman said.
“That’s my breakfast.”
The drug is commonly prescribed to people with cancer and chronic pain, and it’s legally sold in Australia in slow-release patches that cost a few dollars each.
However, the black market is thriving.
In April, the Australian Border Force (ABF) deployed officers to cyberspace to combat increased trade in synthetic drugs like Fentanyl on the Dark Web, where a single patch can be resold for up to $100.
The move followed a dire warning from their American counterparts that Australia could be heading for an overdose epidemic.
“Fentanyl has caused a large number of deaths across North America over a number of years and we fear it could result in a similar toll here as a result of its potency,” ABF boss Roman Quaedvlieg told News Corp at the time.
Iain Cartney, a pharmacist from Bairnsdale in eastern Victoria, said he knows of at least eight deaths caused by Fentanyl sold in his pharmacy this year.
“We have a father who is actually going without his medication because his son is taking them and onselling them,” he told the ABC.
“It worries me to death.”
Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2017, released last week, shows opioid-related overdoses have almost doubled in the 10 years from 2005 to 2015.
Shockingly, more Australians are now dying from overdoses than car accidents.
More than 20 per cent of them were from Fentanyl, or similar synthetic drugs.
Queensland was hardest hit, with a “nineteen-fold” increase in Fentanyl-related deaths, while deaths increased eight times across the country.
The trouble with Fentanyl is its extreme potency.
It’s said to be 50 times stronger than heroin, and 1000 times more potent than morphine, and is commonly referred to as a “zombie drug”.
Cont -
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...SF&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=Facebook
