HARTFORD, Ct. — Health officials in Connecticut are warning residents that a rash of recent statewide overdoses may be linked to fentanyl-laced marijuana.
According to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, more than three dozen such overdoses were reported between July and Oct. 26, requiring the administration by first responders of naloxone for revival, WFSB-TV reported.
The patients in those cases expressed no known cause of their overdoses, stating that they did not use opioids and had only smoked marijuana, the TV station reported.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, developed pharmaceutically to help cancer patients manage pain, that is between 80 and 100 times stronger than morphine and often combined with heroin and/or cocaine to increase the potency of those narcotics, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, just two milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose for most people.
Connecticut Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani said in a prepared statement that the trend began to take shape in early October after police in Plymouth collected samples from several overdose scenes that the state lab later confirmed were marijuana laced with fentanyl.
“This is the first lab confirmed case of marijuana with fentanyl in Connecticut and possibly the first confirmed case in the United States,” Juthani stated.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, which includes fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, increased more than 16% from 2018 to 2019. Meanwhile, more than 36,000 people died from overdoses involving synthetic opioids in 2019, and preliminary data on drug overdose death counts through May 2020 suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of synthetic opioids and subsequent fatalities, the agency stated.
>> Related: Drug overdose deaths top 100,000 annually for first time, CDC says
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