Authorities in Charleston have a warning — the deadly opioid fentanyl, which has been at the center of the nation's ongoing epidemic of overdose deaths, is increasingly being mixed with other drugs like heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Because of its strength, it has also been found in pills meant to imitate Percocet, Oxycodone and Xanax, police said.
Fentanyl-laced drugs have had deadly consequences in the Holy City, police said, noting 215 overdoses in 2020, of which 44 were fatal.
So far in 2021, there have been 47 overdose cases, 12 of them deadly, police said.
