The Deadly Designer Opiods

Norbert, the latest news on the opioid epidemic called it the worst drug crisis in American history. And no state is spared... from the west to east coasts people are becoming addicted to pain killers.

What's worse is underground labs are now making deadlier opioids. Several drugs are made from opium including morphine, codeine, oxycodone and heroin. Though still grown, opium is now also synthesized in the lab bypassing the poppy plant entirely. These synthesized opioids are much more dangerous.

For example, heroin sold on the street is mixed with fentanyl which is one hundred times more potent than morphine. It easily crosses the blood brain barrier where it creates a high but depresses breathing and slows the heart. A lethal dose of Fentanyl for most people is only two milligrams; that's a few grains of salt.

People are attracted to the intense high but more are also dying. The singer Prince died from an overdose. Until recent years, Fentanyl could be bought in China and mailed to the US. Even though that's now illegal, it's also fueled underground labs which alter the chemical structures just subtly to skirt current laws. They're then sold on websites and shipped around the world.

A cousin of Fentanyl called Carfentanyl is one thousand times stronger and after it appeared, one county in the US experienced one hundred seventy six overdoses in just six days. Eighty five percent of the world's opiate use is here in America. That's why in two thousand fifteen, over thirty-three thousand people died of opioid overdose, the first time drug deaths surpassed gun homicides in US history.

It's time for people to realize this high is not worth their lives.