As fentanyl spreads across the globe, drug-related overdoses and fatalities rise with its flow. Where it initially was involved with mostly heroin when reports of its terror first hit the streets, now fentanyl is turning up in street drugs, and imitation pharmaceuticals all off sorts. No drug is safe from the presence of the silent killer, making detection and drug testing kits a must for people that consume psychoactive chemicals.
In America, drug related overdoses are at an all time high, and fentanyl and similar chemicals carfentanil and norfentanyl are the main culprit for the epidemic. The state of Ohio has recently reported that heroin related deaths have declined, and now cocaine and crack cocaine reign as most deadly in state due to high presence of faulty chemicals.
A state-issued analysis from coroner reports indicate that fentanyl has tapped into the black market drug supply. The only drugs that it has not yet been found are in marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms. Reports from 2017 show 5,000 drug-related deaths, up from just 3,050 in 2015.
Official database information from Ohio state records reports that Ohio has 1.8 million annual users of illegal drugs, and the numbers are climbing daily. The high number of illicit drug users make the spread of fentanyl into chemicals beyond heroin very dangerous. It is putting a lot of drug users at risk of illness or death. It just takes a very small amount of the substance to be potentially fatal.
As fentanyl-related deaths plagued heroin users at alarming numbers over the last few years, many users switched to meth or cocaine to try to escape the threat, only to see it spill over into those other chemicals as well.
Full reports from 2017 will not be available until later this year, but so far state data shows that currently the numbers indicate that 1,094 overdose victims had cocaine in their blood, 757 which also had fentanyl in their blood. On the opposite side, heroin related fatal overdoses were found in 671 Ohio residents, 476 of them also had fentanyl as well.
It is obvious that something has to be done to combat the rise of deaths in Ohio, the casualty rates are horrific. As the spread of fentanyl continues to expand past the grasp of opiates and spills over into all other chemicals, the only hope is if users have the ability to test their chemicals.
If the state can not combat the use of drugs, they should strongly consider making test kits more available to the public; stay safe out there Ohio.
