Carfentanil on the rise - Elephant in the room

The DEA in California have issued a new warning about carfentanil. The warning comes as the opioid is being reported more and more. Carfentanil-laced pills are being disguised as prescription pills and sold by street gangs. The profit margin is massive. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid that’s 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl.

This space maintains a news 'alert' for carfentanil. The alerts have increased from 1 or 2 per month on average to that many each day.

Today there are half a dozen stories.

Carfentanil is a threat authorities have long feared, and for good reason. It is extremely potent, deadly, and cheap. It is also resistant to narcan. Carfentanil was detected in 13 of 90 illicit-drug overdose deaths in January in B.C. It was detected in 35 deaths in all of 2018 and 71 deaths in the last seven months of 2017. Total overdose deaths in B.C. in 2018 were 1,510. That number was 1,486 in 2017 and 991 in 2016.