By Alan Johnson, The Columbus Dispatch, and wire reports
COLUMBUS – As police in southern Ohio investigate a rash of overdoses that occurred in the span of two days, a report shows Ohio is ground-zero when it comes to the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Chillicothe police say there were a combined 12 reported overdoses between Tuesday and Wednesday. One overdose was fatal.
Police recently seized drugs that tested positive for the elephant tranquilizer Carfentanil. The drug is 100 times more powerful than heroin. Police cannot confirm if Carfentanil was involved in the recent overdoses.
A new national report confirms what many Ohioans know from cold, hard reality: The state is a destination for huge amounts of deadly fentanyl.
Much of it is coming from China.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, in a study commissioned by Congress, documented the increasing flow of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opoid, coming from the largely unregulated pharmaceutical industry in China. Some of the drug is exported directly to the U.S., but also pours in through Mexico and Canada.
The report puts Ohio at the epicenter of fentanyl abuse, as shown by laboratory tests. Ohio had 3,861 positive lab tests for fentanyl in 2015, more than four times the total in Pennsylvania, the next-highest state, with 897 results.
Results from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, a branch of Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office, confirm the national report. Numbers from three BCI labs for 2016 showed 2,396 positive tests for fentanyl, more than double the number in 2015 and 70 times the 34 fentanyl results in 2010. The drug samples are submitted to the lab for testing from law-enforcement agencies around the state as part of evidence gathering in criminal cases.
At the same time, the BCI labs saw a drop in heroin test results, to 5,768 in 2016 from 6,632 in 2015, a 13 percent decline.
Nationally, law enforcement seized 368 pounds of illicit fentanyl in 2015, a significant amount considering that just two milligrams of the drug, which is equivalent to two grains of salt, can be fatal if inhaled or handled.
China is the primary source of fentanyl coming to the U.S., from both legal and illegal manufacturing operations, the federal report said. The drug arrives in many forms, including counterfeit prescription pills, through parcels shipped in the mail and through shipping services, and smuggled across international borders.