Counterfeit pills found at Prince's home contain powerful opioid fentanyl

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Several pills taken from Prince’s estate in Paisley Park after his death were counterfeit drugs that actually contained fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin, an official close to the investigation said on Sunday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation, said many pills were falsely labelled as “Watson 385”. According to Drugs.com, that stamp is used to identify pills containing a mix of acetaminophen and hydrocodone.

About a dozen tablets were found in a dressing room at Paisley Park, but the vast majority was in bottles of Vitamin C and aspirin that had been tucked inside a suitcase and bags, including one Prince often carried with him.

Autopsy results released in June show Prince died 21 April of an accidental fentanyl overdose. The official said records show the 57-year-old Prince had no prescription for any controlled substances in the state of Minnesota in the 12 months before he died. Authorities are still investigating how Prince obtained the drugs.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/21/prince-death-cause-fentanyl-opioid-counterfeit-pills-drug-overdose

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Associated Press in Minneapolis
Sunday 21 August 2016 20.07 BST

[truthisfreedom]

1. Oh god that's horrible!

So he was murdered, in effect.

[maxsolomon]

16. No, that's not Murder

You're saying his dealer deliberately gave Nelson counterfeit drugs and mislead him as to their contents in order to kill him.

That makes zero sense.

Maybe you could call that Manslaughter, or Negligent Homicide, but more likely Prince KNEW what they were, and that they had Fentanyl in them. He had personal control of his stash and his intake. He OD'd like any other junkie.

[madaboutharry]

2. That is sad.

[brett_jv]

3. The whole '50 times stronger than heroin' ... or morphine or whatever ...

Is breathless 'hype'. The counterfeit nature (and hence unknown actual potency) is the far more important component of the story.

What '50 times stronger' means is that you need 50x less, by weight, of the drug to have an equi-analgesic effect, not that 'you get 50 times higher from taking it', which is a distinction never made by any article I've ever read.

A shot of good Heroin will get you FAR, FAR 'higher' than Fentanyl ever will, it's just that the proper dosage for fentanyl is measured in micrograms, not milligrams like Heroin & Morphine and other opioids.

It's basically like reading that "LSD is 1,000,000 times stronger than Magic Mushrooms!!!!" ... whereas anyone who's taken both can tell you ... their effects are actually pretty damn similar, when taken at normal dosages for each. It's just that a 'dose' mushrooms is ... a few mushrooms ... and an active dose of LSD is the size of like a fraction of a grain of sand in size.

From where I see things, Prince was a victim of the drug war, which has created a scenario where people with a need for the drug (for whatever reason) end up not knowing what the hell they're ingesting. Unknown heroin strengths also kill 1000's of heroin users a year as well.

Easily 90% of the danger and harm caused by 'illegal drugs' are actually a direct result of their illegality and the criminal activity that illegality (and hence profit margins) ... creates.

Legalize and standardize and tax and use the money from taxes (and money saved by NOT incarcerating people, which is $taggering) for rehab ... this will save millions of lives, and improve the lives of millions more. The illegality makes the problem far worse, not just for the users, but even MORE SO ... for the non-users caught in the 'crossfire'.

We should also accept the fact that some people are addicts, will always be so, and try to help them be productive members of society despite this fact instead of locking them up ... because I'll tell you what, people on stimulants make GREAT housecleaners, and many of the greatest artists of all time in just about every arena of art were also junkies, cokeheads, potheads, you name it ... those are just a couple examples

[MADem]

11. The fentanyl will suppress BREATHING. That's where it gets scary.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman died of a heroin and fentanyl combination that took him almost immediately.

There was a lot of stepped-on heroin on the east coast at that time--it was causing a lot of deaths. It migrated westward, eventually.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-norco-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-rise-to-14-problem-spreads-to-bay-area-20160426-story.html

Bay Area hospitals have treated seven patients who ingested what they thought was the painkiller Norco in recent weeks, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The patients all survived, though at least some experienced nausea, vomiting and difficulty breathing.

The pills were adulterated with fentanyl, the powerful opioid.

Sacramento County health officials have reported 52 Norco-connected poisonings since late March, with 12 of those cases resulting in deaths. Neighboring Yolo County reported two deaths.

Law enforcement officials investigating the source of the pills will be looking to see whether the Sacramento and Bay Area cases are connected, said Casey Rettig, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent based in San Francisco. She said she could not discuss details of the DEA's ongoing investigation, but she noted that the Bay Area and Sacramento County illnesses occurred around the same time and that pills in the two areas had the same markings.

Prince had a drug problem, and he had it for some time. He didn't seek medical treatment for his physical ailments (due to religious reasons) but resorted to illegal drugs for pain amelioration instead--and then it got out of hand.

[Odin2005]

14. Don't all opioids suppress breathing?

[MADem]

18. The fentanyl will sneak up on the user.

If the heroin is stepped on w/the fentanyl, it can kill 'em and they'll never know what hit 'em.

This is why there were dozens of heroin deaths in the northeast around the time that PSH died--it was a heroin/fentanyl mix. People thought they could use the drugs in the same way that they always have, but when they did, they ended up on the bathroom floor with a needle in their arm.

[Odin2005]

22. Jesus Christ!

[Sgent]

4. He was murdered

hydrocodone doesn't kill unless you take 3 bottles of it.

[brett_jv]

5. It's 3rd degree at best, and probably the penalty for making illicit vicodins w/fentanyl ...

And offering them for sale .... is most likely a longer sentence anyway ...

But yeah, in a manner of speaking, it's murder, for sure.

It's just nobody has 'sympathy' for 'dope fiends' who buy 'illegal drugs', whether 'real' or not. So going after the provider on drug-related charges would probably yield a more appropriate sentence than murder charges would.

What's perhaps saddest ... is that our 'war on (some) drugs' has made this whole fiasco ... 'even a thing'.

ON EDIT: Also, it's really not possible to 'say' what a lethal dosage of an opioid is. It's completely dependent on 'exposure' aka 'tolerance'. There was a time in my life where I could've taken 240mg of oxycodone in one gulp, and ... I dunno ... driven 300 miles without getting pulling over ... or gone before a judge and claimed to be stone-cold sober and gotten away with it, or ... you name it. Humans have basically unlimited tolerance to opioids if you built the tolerance over time.

240mg of oxycodone, otoh, given to opioid-naive subjects ... could probably kill 2-6 of them, depending on their weight ... and would damn sure kill me now ... after years and years away from the stuff.

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. True. And if he thought it was Vicodin

and he had built up a tolerance, he may have taken several. It's sad he was in so much pain.

[MADem]

19. Fentanyl will kill you, though. It will stop you from breathing. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. I was given fentanyl after surgery

I stopped using the patches after I left the hospital because they made me a zombie. Total blackout, I had no recollection of anything and was pissing myself.

[brett_jv]

8. Sounds like they gave ya a bit too high a dose ...

Truth is, to really significantly reduce severe pain requires a level of opioids that'll throw the average person for a pretty good loop ... if you wanna have your wits reasonably about you, the best you're gonna do is 'taking the edge off' ... 10mg of hydro or oxy, or 30mg of oral morphine ... that'll make most pain tolerable without getting you to the level of 'pissing yourself' ... your memory will definitely suffer a bit though even at that dose.

I've actually not heard of doctors giving fentanyl patches for post-operative pain, that's usually a drug used for chronic pain patients, most of which have a decent tolerance. Usually it's 5 or 10mg percocet or vicodin for a post-op scenario. Was it like back surgery or something expected to take weeks to recover from (if you don't mind my asking)?

By the way ... OVER THE LINE!!!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. I kept tearing out my IV in the hospital

[LeftyMom]

9. He performed in Oakland shortly before he died.

Northern California had a rash of deaths from fentanyl disguised as hydrocodone around the same time.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened.

[47of74]

10. Yeah we've had some ODs here in Iowa from fentanyl

My understanding is that we had a dealer working the area who gave people heroin laced with fentanyl and there were some fatalities as a result.

[JonLP24]

12. High heroin overdose rates across the country

Last edited Tue Aug 23, 2016, 09:58 PM - Edit history (1)

Are usually the result of it being cut with fetanyl. Remember a Detroit dealer on Vice said a reason dealers used it was if someone died it would be like an advertisement they have some "strong shit" and an overdose would improve business.

[Odin2005]

13. I guessed this as soon as I heard that he suffered from knee issues and chronic pain.

He couldn't get knee surgery because of his religious beliefs against blood transfusions and so he just lived with the pain.

[MADem]

20. Of course, he could have gone to a specialty surgeon who specializes in no-transfusion surgery

(they are very popular these days even amongst the non-religious) or he could have given his own blood to be held in reserve, just in case.

He was an addict. It's unfortunate.

Here's an article about what I am talking about--this was the common practice well before he died:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-jehovahs-witnesses-are-changing-medicine

[Hestia]

17. ‘Truly terrifying’: Chinese suppliers flood US and Canada with deadly fentanyl

‘Truly terrifying’: Chinese suppliers flood US and Canada with deadly fentanyl
By DAVID ARMSTRONG @DavidArmstrongX
APRIL 5, 2016

The dozen packages were shipped from China to mail centers and residences in Southern California. One box was labeled as a “Hole Puncher.”

In fact, it was a quarter-ton pill press, which federal investigators allege was destined for a suburban Los Angeles drug lab. The other packages, shipped throughout January and February, contained materials for manufacturing fentanyl, an opioid so potent that in some forms it can be deadly if touched.

When it comes to the illegal sale of fentanyl, most of the attention has focused on Mexican cartels that are adding the drug to heroin smuggled into the United States. But Chinese suppliers are providing both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for the assembly-line production of the drug powering a terrifying and rapid rise of fatal overdoses across the United States and Canada, according to drug investigators and court documents.

“We have seen an influx of fentanyl directly from China,” said Carole Rendon, the acting US attorney for the northern district of Ohio in Cleveland. “It’s being shipped by carrier. It’s hugely concerning because fentanyl is so incredibly deadly.”

The China connection is allowing local drug dealers in North America to mass produce fentanyl in pill form, in some cases producing tablets that look identical to an oft-abused version of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. It also has been added to Xanax pills. And last week, fentanyl pills made to resemble the painkiller hydrocodone were blamed for a wave of overdoses in the Sacramento area, including nine deaths.

The fentanyl pills are often disguised as other painkillers because those drugs fetch a higher price on the street, even though they are less potent, according to police.

more at link: https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/05/fentanyl-traced-to-china/

[GOLGO 13]

21. That's some serious garbage to be addicted to