Fentanyl Archives

Harm Reduction for Fentanyl Is Now Everyday Life

Post author:Melissa
Post published:January 31, 2023
Post category:fentanyl fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

People who use drugs have started dying from accidental drug overdoses. For many of them, they believed they were taking Molly, Oxycontin, or another pill bought from an online drug dealer. Sadly, just one pill has led to many overdose deaths. People have begun to gather in person; overdoses seem to have accelerated. Many concerned parents and community members now carry Narcan to help reverse an overdose in progress. And now, in New York, determined drug users test their drugs to see if they’re tainted with fentanyl.

Fentanyl Is In Almost Every Street Drug

The pandemic has hung over an increasingly unsettled population for the past three years. The pandemic brought about economic issues and inflation. Some people lost members of their families. News stories are still permeated about how COVID has reshaped us. This includes how people buy …

Experts Predict Fentanyl Crisis to Continue in 2023

Post author:Melissa
Post published:December 28, 2022
Post category:fentanyl fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Fentanyl is the top cause of overdoses in 2022 and may be responsible for over 80% of overdose deaths. While police have cracked down and increased penalties for fentanyl sales, it continues to flow over the border. Federal authorities believe that 2023 will continue to be marred by fentanyl and that dangerous analogs and other additives may contribute to the misery.

Fentanyl Use Prevention and Treatment Are Working

First, there is some good news on the horizon. More people than ever are accepting help via medical-assisted treatment. As a result, the overdose death rate is slowing, but overdoses have increased, especially among the younger demographics.

People know that there is help if they are addicted, but they may not understand the dangers of fentanyl or how to be safe from them. Measures such as education on fentanyl and counterfeit pills …

Fentanyl Vaccine Could Be A New Tool To Fight Epidemic

Post author:Melissa
Post published:November 30, 2022
Post category:addiction treatment
Reading time:3 mins read

New research from a team of scientists at the University of Houston aims to create a vaccine to block the powerful opioid fentanyl, which is the top cause of overdose deaths in America. The vaccine is meant for people who already struggle with opioid addiction and hope to break the cycle. For fentanyl addicts, Medication-Assisted Treatment is considered the gold standard of care. However, a “vaccine” of this type could be a game-changer for preventing relapse from opioid use disorder.

Fentanyl is now responsible for the majority of overdose deaths in America. The drug, 50 to 100 times stronger than opioids, is often added to other drugs such as cocaine or Oxy. Some users die because they have no tolerance for opioids. Nearly 150 people die a day from fentanyl overdoses.

What Would a Fentanyl Vaccine Be Able to Accomplish?

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Critics Say California Resistant to Strengthened Overdose Reversal Drugs

Post author:Melissa
Post published:October 29, 2022
Post category:fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Fentanyl, a drug that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine, has become a common adulterant in street drugs. Officials say this is the reason so many fentanyl encounters result in death; most people don’t mean to take it. When an opioid-naïve user ends up ingesting fentanyl, sometimes the drugs are so potent that normal-strength Naloxone, an opioid reversal drug, has little effect. EMTs have anecdotes of using multiple cans of fentanyl to attempt to bring fentanyl overdoses back to life. However, stronger and more effective opioid-reversal drugs are available.

Fentanyl Overdoses Are Becoming More Common

Fentanyl is now found in cocaine, heroin, speed, and counterfeit pills such as Xanax or Oxycontin. And they’re easier to get than ever. Law enforcement finds drug dealers on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Signal. When one forum becomes risky to use for …

Para-fluorofentanyl Increasingly Found In Fatal Overdoses

Post author:Melissa
Post published:September 30, 2022
Post category:fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Para-flourofentanyl, a fentanyl analog that is even stronger than its predecessor, has increasingly been found in the blood of overdose victims, according to a report by the CDC. While many people may not be aware they’re taking the drug, it’s now commonly added to counterfeit fentanyl pills, often with deadly results.

What Is Para-fluorofentanyl?

Para-Fluorofentanyl is an opioid analgesic analog of fentanyl, a drug commonly used in surgeries due to its painkilling and sedative powers. Fentanyl is the top cause of overdose deaths in the United States and is often found as an additive to drugs. Many users who are inexperienced with opioids end up overdosing when exposed for the first time.

Initially developed by Janssen Pharmaceutica in the 1960s, p-Fluorofentanyl never made it to market. Amateur chemists tried to sell it on the streets in the early 1980s. However, …

Fentanyl Overdoses Among The Young Are Killing

Post author:Melissa
Post published:May 23, 2022
Post category:fentanyl fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Young people are getting back together in real life, and with that socializing comes new experiences. Kids are being kids, pushing boundaries, partying, and rebelling. Snapchat, TikTok, and other apps put things like Molly pills and other club drugs in their hands overnight. Many of the drug dealers drop off packages in mailboxes at night. And the drug users, aged as young as fourteen or as old as in their 30s, don’t have the experience or know-how to test their drugs for fentanyl. And due to their lack of opioid exposure, this leads to overdoses – and death. Teens and young adults are overdosing at record rates.

Why Are Drugs Tainted With Fentanyl?

Nobody knows just one reason for drugs being tainted with fentanyl. Often the powder for club drugs and opioids comes from overseas. Drug dealers may mix the …

Fentanyl Is The Leading Cause Of Death Among Young And Middle-Aged Adults

Post author:Melissa
Post published:March 28, 2022
Post category:fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:2 mins read

For adults aged 18-45, fentanyl is the most common cause of death in the United States of America, according to new data from the CDC. The deaths outnumbered car wrecks, alcohol-related deaths (which also increased), and cancer. Fentanyl is here to stay, and it’s killing young people. Why is it the leading cause of death? What can people do to help prevent these deaths, individuals, or communities?

Fentanyl Is Often An Adulterant

Many people who overdose on fentanyl have no idea they are taking it. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s true. Fentanyl has been found as an adulterant on both the East and the West Coast. It’s been added to cocaine, meth, molly, and opioid pills sold as Oxy.

There has even been a case of fentanyl added to black-market marijuana in California.

It’s not clear …

New York Jury Finds Teva Liable For Opioid Epidemic

Post author:Melissa
Post published:December 30, 2021
Post category:fentanyl
Reading time:2 mins read

A jury in Suffolk County, New York, found Teva Pharmaceutical liable for their role in the opioid epidemic, alongside a long list of other companies involved in the trade. Teva makes powerful pain medications using the powerful opioid fentanyl.

In fact, between April 2020 and April 2021, overdose deaths from opioids totaled over 75,000, an increase of nearly 25,000. Most of those deaths involved fentanyl, a drug almost 50 times as potent as heroin.

What Teva Pharmaceutical Did

A Suffolk County jury decided that Teva played a role in what is legally termed a “public nuisance.” The nuisance, however, also involved over 500,00 deaths in the past twenty years.

Most of the charges related to the promotion and marketing of fentanyl, which is similar to what the makers of Oxycontin were convicted of in recent years.

Teva is known …

Doctors Seeing Increased Overdose Deaths

Post author:Melissa
Post published:January 30, 2021
Post category:doctors
Reading time:2 mins read

The pandemic death toll is both startling and sad, but other crises, including the addiction epidemic alongside the pandemic. Doctors say that overdose deaths from the opioid epidemic are higher than they have been in years, leaving families heartbroken. The damage has largely been uncounted by the media due to the unrest and pandemic, but it’s a true problem that is bubbling beneath the surface.

Places Hit Hard By Overdose Deaths

Overdoses have increased across the board in regions already hard-hit by the addiction epidemic. In Louisiana, “Just to give you some numbers, we had 233 total overdoses in 2020 compared to 154 in 2019,” said the Jefferson Parish Coroner Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich. ”We have seen an increase in methamphetamine as well. Still, the biggest increase is in fentanyl, literally if you are just going from year to year, in …

Fake Oxycontin is Killing People

Post author:Melissa
Post published:August 31, 2020
Post category:OxyContin addiction
Reading time:2 mins read

Fake Oxycontin is a big trend on the streets in America, and investigators in Minnesota say they’re the cause of fatal overdoses. Usually, they’re laced with fentanyl, which can be fifty to a hundred times as potent than morphine.

Fake But Deadly

In St. Cloud, Minnesota, a recent overdose came from fentanyl marketed on the street as Oxycontin. Some fentanyl has also been passed off to be Oxycodone or Percocet. It’s a nationwide trend in recent months, as drug traffic has stalled at the border during a national pandemic.

The pills are made to look like the real pill, although some have a blueish tint to them. One side of the tablet is blue with the “M” stamped on one side and “30” stamped on the other.

Last month, a Sacramento resident was caught with over 1,000 pills of what …