COLUMBUS – As law enforcement agencies nationwide continue to try to stem a tide of powerful street drugs, which now include a potentially deadly elephant sedative, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is warning Ohio authorities to reconsider testing street drugs on the scene because the potency of popular drugs could harm officers who inhale or touch them.
“We think the old practice of field testing is just not a good idea if they can be avoided,” DeWine said Wednesday.
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His concerns are valid and should be heeded, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Rich Isaacson said.
“Just a small amount absorbed through the skin can kill you,” Isaacson said.
The attorney general’s Criminal Intelligence Unit has issued two bulletins in the past month to police across Ohio, warning them about the dangers of handling drugs. The issue has become important because of the lethality of drugs sold and used across the state.
Heroin is a proven killer. Now, fentanyl, a narcotic that provides the user with a heroin-like high but is 50 to 100 times more potent, has become popular. Its use has caused several recent deaths in Ohio.
At the same time, a drug used to sedate elephants and other large animals that is 100 times as potent as the fentanyl is suspected in spates of overdoses in Ohio and several other states.
Authorities say they’ve found carfentanil mixed with or passed off as much weaker heroin.
A central Ohio man suspected of selling carfentanil as heroin was indicted this week on charges including murder in connection with 10 overdoses, including one death. Investigators are still trying to track down the source.
Carfentanil also has been suspected in overdoses or found in Akron and Cincinnati, central Kentucky and western Florida.
A coroner in Cincinnati warned that the overdose antidote naloxone might not be enough to save people overdosing on carfentanil.