With heroin being one of the most popular drugs in the area, local law enforcement is taking steps to prevent the spread of a dangerous new ingredient.
Fentanyl, which was initially manufactured as a painkiller and is 80 times more powerful than morphine, is being laced in heroin, with dangerous consequences. During one week in August, Cincinnati had 174 overdoses, all likely related to laced heroin, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. Officials in Hamilton County said the epidemic was unlike anything they had seen before.
“When you get a bunch of overdoses in a short amount of time, that means the heroin is laced,” said Dr. James Gaskell of the Athens City-County Health Department. “And recently the thing it’s being laced with is fentanyl.”
Fentanyl was originally administered as a patch and became habit-forming for some patients. Now sold in powdered form, it has caught the attention of local law enforcement.
Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith said the drug has not yet made an appearance in heroin in Athens County. Athens, Fairfield and Hocking counties are linked by U.S. Route 33, which the Major Crimes Unit, a collaboration between police departments in those counties, has identified as transport road for drugs from Columbus into southeast Ohio.
“Through Major Crimes, we’ve developed a new criminal interdiction unit,” Smith said. “Our hope is to hit the problem areas, develop more informants, do a lot of networking, talk to other agencies.”
The sheriff’s officers now carry naloxone, sometimes referred to as narcan, a drug that can revive a person who has overdosed. The county health department has also started training and supplying naloxone to community members who have a loved one using drugs. The health department and sheriff’s office believe these changes have been a success — last year's total of six overdose deaths was the lowest in several years — but it makes it difficult to track the number of overdoses in the county.
“We don’t hear about the cases where there is a successful rescue (by the family),” Gaskell said. “They will come in to get the narcan, but they’re nervous that we will report them to the police.”
Gaskell said that might be the reason why local law enforcement has not uncovered fentanyl in Athens County.
“We don't know exactly what’s going on,” Sheriff Smith said. “All we can do is prepare the best we can.”
Earlier this summer Akron was hit with a wave of overdoses caused by carfentanil, a version of fentanyl that is 100 times stronger, Gaskell said. Carfentanil was created to tranquilize elephants and other large animals.
“It’s a drug so potent that you worry about rescuers being affected by it,” Gaskell said.
Due to the dangerous potency of the drug, Commander Dennis Lowe of the Major Crimes Unit isn’t taking any chances. His officers are now required to wear gloves when handling any heroin they pick up — the fentanyl is so powerful that even a small amount absorbed through the skin can cause an overdose.
“There have been officers that have come into contact with it and overdosed,” Lowe said.
He added that heroin and meth are currently the most popular drugs in the area.
“More and more we’re seeing drugs that are claimed to be heroin but are actually fentanyl,” Lowe said. “It’s my belief that in the next couple of years we won’t see heroin here, it will all be fentanyl.”
