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On the night of August 9, 2017, a 27-year-old woman with painful abdominal pain took what she thought was a prescription painkiller, but the familiar pill with blue spots was not what it was. she thought, according to the authorities.
This pill, designed to look like a tablet from Percocet, contained heroin and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid – and it caused her death, authorities said.
"At least" three deaths in the area, all people who thought buying narcotic drugs on the street, were associated with fraudulent pills, and the authorities claim that this number could be much higher because they are looking for exactly where these drugs come from.
"The fear here is that these drug traffickers are dealing with these things as Percocet and that people think they're taking a low dose of pain medications, but that they're taking a lethal dose of fentanyl or heroin, "said Northampton County Attorney General John Morganelli on Monday. at a press conference.
He warned the public against the pills in the likeness. He added that the county grand jury would participate in the investigation and hoped to be able to announce criminal charges in the near future.
The authorities did not identify the victims while awaiting the investigation but, in addition to the woman from Lower Nazareth, two men died in May in Bethlehem. In all three cases, it appears that the victims took the same blue pills that they thought were prescription pain killers, but with fentanyl or a mixture of fentanyl and heroin.
The national opioid epidemic, caused by prescription opioids and by cheap access to heroin, kills nearly one person a day in the Lehigh Valley and shows no signs sign of slowing down, announced the authorities.
Authorities have reported 32 deaths last year in fentanyl-based counties in Lehigh and Northampton, which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe as an "extremely potent" synthetic opioid that is fueling the national outbreak of deaths by drug overdose.
Although Valley police and medical experts are unsure of the number of people who are taking prescription drugs that they buy on the street or online and that contain fentanyl and other medications, this is not the case. is a problem that the national authorities are dealing with.
According to a 2017 report published by the National Association of Pharmacy Boards, counterfeit prescription drugs sold online and in the streets often contain fentanyl and other deadly medications. The Drug Enforcement Administration also issued several warnings in 2017 regarding fraudulent painkillers, noting that their production requires only a small investment in equipment and materials.
"Driven by tremendous profit potential, traffickers are exploiting the high consumer demand for prescription drugs by producing inexpensive and fraudulent prescription drugs containing fentanyl," according to one of the DEA reports. "The sudden influx of massive amounts of counterfeit prescription drugs containing fentanyl will result in an increase in overdoses, deaths and opioid addicts."
Dr. Kenneth Katz, emergency physician at Lehigh Valley Health Network, said he had treated several patients who had purchased opioid and anti-anxiety medications online, which turned out to be prescription medications fraudulent.
"It's not uncommon for us to see," Katz said. "It is totally illegal and should be stopped immediately."
He added that online drugs posed another problem, adding that some patients could buy more than the prescribed amount. One patient had convulsions after taking prescription tramadol, but he bought more than needed and took too much, Katz said.
"It's almost impossible to regulate drugs sold online," said Katz. "It's like Frankenstein. They can assemble this monster and no one knows what it contains.
In the death of Lower Nazareth, Morganelli said that gastroparesis caused her "pain and discomfort", but that she was a "relatively healthy woman."
She lived at home with her parents and on the night of her death she had a brief conversation with her mother before going to bed and taking a similar pill. The authorities said that a few hours later she had died from a cardiac arrest related to fentanyl and heroin.
In his bedroom, officers from the regional colonial region found a blue dot pill with a "30" engraved on one side and an "M" in a square on the other side, authorities said. This pill looked like a standard 30 milligram tablet of oxycodone sold as Percocet, Morganelli said. But he was "entirely composed" of fentanyl and heroin, according to the authorities.
"It would appear that she bought what she thought was on the street as Percocet to help relieve her condition and her symptoms," Morganelli said. "But it was a lot more deadly."
Among the other victims, a "young man" in Bethlehem, who died on May 22 with the same fraudulent Percocet, and on May 27, a second man found dead on a park bench in Bethlehem with the same pills in his possession, announced authorities. In both cases, the pills were made entirely of fentanyl, Morganelli said.
It is "much less expensive" to create fentanyl prescription pain relievers similar in form to the drugs they are intended for, said Dr. John Gallagher, a member of the state's Opioid Task Force.
Although the names of prescription drugs such as Percocet or Vicodin are known instantly, there is no way to know if the drugs that users buy on the street or online are really legitimate, Gallagher said.
And as the authorities are more successful in targeting doctors who may prescribe too many painkillers and patients who consult multiple doctors for a prescription, this means that some patients with legitimate pain are "driven to find new sources. unreliable drugs, "Gallagher. I said.
"The vast majority of overdose deaths today include the presence of fentanyl and it is essential to make this risk known."
Law enforcement agencies were told to monitor drugs closely, but Morganelli said it was equally important to warn users and their families of the dangers to which they could be exposed.
"For drug addicts or those who suffer from pain, they have to take treatment and not on the street to satisfy their addiction," Morganelli said. "We are losing these people every day because of this battle."
Twitter @pamelalehman
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