Mini Series 9 - Pass me the Fentanyl, Please

Busting Addiction and Its Myths

There is still little understanding of the power of the substance fentanyl.
Let’s start with some inconvenient facts. Drug overdoses claim more lives than breast cancer, gun violence or car accidents. Combined. They are the #1 cause of accidental death in the United States. According to the CDC, there were over 109,000 fatal overdoses in the 12-month period ending March 2022 (the latest data available).
Overdose deaths were fuelled by the rapid increase in the availability and low cost of synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl.
It’s now sprinkled into almost any illegal drug to give it a bigger kick, and that’s so that you the addict will go back to your dealer and say: “Hey that was some good …I’ll have more of that.”
Fentanyl is consumed straight up as in snorted, injected, or smoked with marijuana, mixed into meth, snorted with cocaine, consumed as part of a heroin injection and so on. Users often don’t know that they’re also using it as part of a recipe for their drug of choice.
Since it is 50 to 100 times more powerful than heroin for its weight, it’s easy to overdose if you’re only off by a little bit.
Thank goodness that naloxone, also known as Narcan, is now widely available to help those who have overdosed but are still alive to instantly reverse fentanyl’s effects. Multiple naloxone doses might be necessary because of fentanyl’s potency.