Elephant Tranquilizer Could Be Linked to Wave of Heroin Overdoses in Midwest

U.S.
Elephant Tranquilizer Could Be Linked to Wave of Heroin Overdoses in Midwest

By KATIE ROGERS AUG. 26, 2016

A drug commonly used to tranquilize elephants and other large animals has been surfacing in supplies of heroin in Ohio, officials say. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press

Officials across the country are grappling with waves of heroin-related overdoses and deaths this year, an epidemic blamed on heroin mixed with fentanyl, an opiate estimated to be 100 times as strong as morphine.

But officials in the Cincinnati area and in southern Indiana say that a synthetic drug, carfentanil — 10,000 times as potent as morphine — could be tied to at least 189 overdoses across both states in the past week, resulting in at least four deaths in the states.

In the Cincinnati area alone, there were more than 78 overdoses reported between Tuesday and Wednesday, according to a report from The Cincinnati Enquirer. In the same time span, at least 15 overdoses, one of them fatal, were rippling through two neighboring counties in Indiana, some 90 miles away.

It was not immediately clear if the cases in the two states were connected or if carfentanil was, in fact, the culprit, but for weeks officials in Ohio have been warning the public that carfentanil is showing up in local supplies of heroin.
What is carfentanil?

The drug, a cousin of fentanyl, is used to tranquilize large animals like elephants.
Why do officials think carfentanil may be related to these cases?

Officials in Ohio and Indiana noticed that more people are needing more doses of the antidote Narcan, or naloxone, in order to survive an overdose.

This “usually goes hand in hand” with the presence of carfentanil, Lt. Tom Fallon of the Hamilton County Heroin Task Force in Ohio said on Friday.

Chief Bill Abbott of the police in Seymour, Ind., said Friday that another indicator was that the people who overdosed in Indiana were unresponsive with shallow breathing — in some cases, the users’ lips were turning blue.

People with similar symptoms were reported to be overdosing in Jennings County.

“If the person can tell us what they’ve taken, we won’t normally use it,” he said of naloxone. “It’s used in what we consider a life-threatening state.”

Chief Abbott said that when Michael Purvis, 34, overdosed in a home in Seymour on Tuesday, he needed four doses of naloxone. One dose is considered typical.

Mr. Purvis, who was among three people who overdosed in the house, was arrested and charged with dealing a controlled substance, according to a report from RTV6, an ABC affiliate in Indianapolis.
What else could’ve caused the surge in overdoses?

Both Lieutenant Fallon and Chief Abbott said that it was too early to tell if carfentanil is behind the overdoses, or if the cases are linked. The cause could also be related to dealers’ selling pure fentanyl to people who are think they are buying heroin.

“To me, it’s irrelevant,” Chief Abbot said, “because they’re both extremely powerful pain medicines.”
Where are these drugs coming from?

The police in Indiana and Ohio don’t know, and say only limited samples of the drug were recovered for testing. Melvin Patterson, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in Washington, told The Cincinnati Enquirer that in the past, carfentanil had been traced to Chinese manufacturers who ship the drug through Mexico and into the United States.

“It’s such a restricted drug there’s only a handful of places in the United States that can have it,” Mr. Patterson said.

Lieutenant Fallon said that fentanyl is much easier for people to get access to and to manufacture than carfentanil.

“You don’t have to wait for a poppy plant to mature when you can just hire a chemist and develop some of these substitutes for heroin in a back-alley chemist lab,” he said.
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Rayshon LaCarlos Alexander Credit Franklin County Sheriff's Office, via Associated Press

The police say that mass overdoses are often linked to one bad batch. Last month, one batch was tied to 11 overdoses and two deaths in the Columbus area, the Ohio police told The Columbus Dispatch.

Rayshon Alexander, 36, was later arrested and accused of selling people pure carfentanil, The Associated Press reported. He has been charged with murder.
How are officials responding?

In Ohio, Lieutenant Fallon said that the police were trying to work with addiction specialists to visit the homes of people who had recently overdosed. Sometimes, those people want help, and other times they don’t, he said.

He also said that police agencies in the area have been given naloxone to administer it themselves before paramedics show up.

Lieutenant Fallon said that “any police agency that wanted Narcan got it. The cops get there way before the paramedics.”