7 drug overdoses over 10-hour period possibly linked to fentanyl, KCK police say | News

KANSAS CITY, KS (KCTV) — Police are investigating a scary number of drug overdoses within just a few hours.

Police Chief Terry Zeigler suspects all of these deaths may linked to a type of opioid called fentanyl.

Officers say they saw seven overdoses Thursday. They haven’t seen any more Friday, but Zeigler says he believes the common link is a drug with a combination of fentanyl and cocaine.

And that has become an all too common cause of overdoses within the past few years, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. It’s like morphine but 50-100 times stronger. Synthetic opioids,like fentanyl, are the most common type of drug involved in overdose deaths in the United States.

And the latest data shows a spike in fentanyl specific overdose deaths account for nearly 60 percent of all opioid related overdoses. In 2017, fentanyl related overdoses shot up to 28,400.

But, the Centers for Disease Control report the specific combination of fentanyl and cocaine has seen the biggest surge in overdose deaths within the past five years.

Police also did not point to any specific area of town where these overdoses have happened, only saying it was “spread out.”

Police would not make any additional comment about the overdose investigations until they received lab results back next week from the Johnson County Crime Lab.

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