# 7

Near daily examples of the fatal consequences resulting from adult choices, frequently based upon misplaced trust that dosage is therapeutic, substance is pure and not laced with a second substance, and possibly that Narcan can "save the day."

Fentanyl...Heroin laced with Fentanyl.

The 22 individuals reported in this single-day case from New Haven, Connecticut may have known their distributer; but did they know the person who obtained and added the Fentanyl? 

Did they know the volume of Fentanyl which was added to the Heroin?

Did they know that they were purchasing an additional toxic/potentially fatal substance, in addition to the Heroin they thought they were purchasing?

Officials declare health emergency in Connecticut city after string of overdoses

Published June 24, 2016

FoxNews.com

Officials in a Connecticut city said Thursday they are experiencing a major public health crisis after more than 20 overdoes were reported, including two fatal cases.

New Haven health officials told WTNH-TV that they activated the emergency notification system to warn residents about the tainted life-threatening heroin on the streets. According to the New Haven Independent the batches of heroin were laced with fentanyl.

Officials said by Thursday night there were about 22 overdoses and two deaths reported. Police said those numbers could rise.

“I don’t ever recall a day like this ever. I don’t think we’ve had this amount in a very, very long,” assistant Fire Chief Matt Marcarelli told the paper. “We have barely enough Narcan to get throughout the night. We’re hoping it calms down. We used up almost the whole supply of Narcan in the city.”

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/heroin_overdose/

Naloxone, also known as Narcan, is administered to someone who is overdosing on heroin to reverse its effects. The fire department was working with the Yale-New Haven Hospital and AMR ambulance in Hartford to obtain more.

Paramedics started to respond to emergency calls at around 3:30 p.m. By then, at least six people had overdoes and were unconscious within three to four blocks of each other, the Independent reported.

From the New Haven Independent regarding the same series of events, we read:

More calls followed the Bowen one: Another two overdoses back in Newhallville, then two more around 9 p.m. at the Walgreens parking lot at George and York streets. One of the two women found there — a mother and a daughter — went into cardiac arrest.
One of the women was reported dead at 10:16 p.m.
Fentanyl has become a popular additive among heroin dealers in the U.S. It produces a more intense high. It also kills more people.
“Fentanyl is 80-100 times more potent than heroin,” Marcarelli said, “so it requires that much more Narcan to reverse it.”

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Fentanyl  (below are links to the Drug Enforcement Agency's one page fact sheet and a documentary film which emphasizes the deaths resulting from the choices and the toxicity)

http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/fentanyl.pdf

http://interactive.fusion.net/death-by-fentanyl/intro.html