10 Killed, More Could Die on Fake Pain Pills

Since March 23 this year, 10 individuals, from the 42 patients who have been medicated for overdoses, have already died. The authorities believed that the overdose deaths are caused by the fake pain pills.

"The overdoses are occurring at an alarming rate," a representative of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in San Francisco said. After being convinced that the counterfeit drugs caused these deaths, the agency opened an anonymous tip line for the public to give information that can help in the investigation as cited on Medical News Media Source.

According to a news article on CNN, the health officials of Sacramento are strongly convinced that these cases are related to the Norco pills which are widely sold on the street. Popularly used as pain reliever, Norco is a drug that contains a combination of hydrocodone and acetaminophen. The laboratory tests on some of the pills in question, nevertheless, were not found to contain acetaminophen or hydrocodone.

On the other hand, the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services expressed that the lab tests had found out that the pills in question do contain fentanyl. "This indicates that they are really fentanyl pills (street drugs - counterfeit) that have been made to look like Norco," said one official of the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services as cited on KRON 4. Because this chemical substance is fifty to a hundred times powerful than morphine as well as twenty-five to fifty times stronger than heroin, fentanyl is considered as very lethal according to the DEA.

Moreover, fentanyl overdose can be reversed sometimes with Narcan, which is medically called naloxone. Loss of consciousness, vomiting, pupils that are the size of a pinpoint, trouble breathing and blue skin are the major symptoms of fentanyl overdose.

Sacramento residents are now constantly reminded by health officials to use only the drugs prescribed to them by medical professionals and to take pills sold in a trustworthy pharmacy.