Fentanyl is an extremely powerful drug that has been used for decades as a painkiller. Because of its high potential to cause addiction, it has primarily been used to relieve severve pain, such as from advanced cancer or after serious surgery.
Fentanyl is in the same class of drugs as painkillers like morphine or oxycodone and the illegal drug herion. Those drugs, called Opioids, are primarily products of opium poppy. Some, like herion and morphine, are dirextly derived from opium. Others, like oxycodone, are semisynthetic, meaning creating in a laboratory from a natural subtance. Fentanyl is 100 percent created in a lab and fully synthetic.
Not plant products are needed to make fentanyl, which means it can be created anywhere that lab chemicals can be obtained. This has made it easy for drug-traddicking oraganizations to manufacture it in illicit labs for distribution as a street drug. In 2013, distribution of fentanyl began skyrocketing in the US, with resultant overdose deaths increasing from that point forward.
How is fentanly used?
As a pharmaceutical drug, fentanyl can be applied to the skin in a patch, asministered as a very low-dosage pill or given in a lozenge, or “lollipop”, that slowly dissolves. There are also sprays used under the tongue or in the nose. Liquid fentanyl may be injected.
Any of these forms of fentanyl can be misused. Patches can be cut up and placed under the tongue or the contents squeezed out and swallowed.
Illicit forms of fentanyl are often found in fake prescription pills, any one of which may be fatal. Powdered fentanyl can be dissolved for injection or for smoking in a glass pipe. Nonpharmaceutical fentanyl can also be added to eyedrops, nasal spray or small squares of blotter paper that users place in their mouths.
Because fentanyl can be combined with methamphetamine or cocaine, it may be snorted, smoked or injected with users unaware thet are taking fentanyl.
And incresing number of illegal vape products and marijuana are also being laced with fentanyl, which can be lethal.
