Synthetic opioid causing concern in Chattanooga after 4 overdose deaths

The number of overdoses is increasing every year in Hamilton County. The spike of 4 deaths in Chattanooga and one in East Ridge in the past few days is evidence of that.

But the Sheriff’s office is especially worried about one drug, where coming into contact with even a small amount of it could be deadly.

Detective Marty Dunn says he counts at least 168 overdoses in Hamilton County in 2019 alone, and fifteen percent of them came as a result of a synthetic opioid called fentanyl.

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And Dunn says now more than ever, this opioid is being mixed and sold on the street with other dangerous narcotics – such as heroin.

“This stuff is so potent that it can be absorbed through the pores in your skin,” Hamilton County Detective Marty Dunn said. “Mere contact with it can lead you into an overdose situation.”

And it’s not just drug users that could be at risk. Dunn says those who try to help someone in the middle of an overdose could come into contact with the drug and suffer the consequences.

Experts say the real danger comes when dealers try to make a cocktail out of the drugs by themselves.

“They’ll fill a mason jar up with some inert substance, and they’ll add a little bit of fentanyl to it,” CADAS Director Paul Fuchcar said. “They’ll shake it up real good, and they’ll either press it out into pills and called it hydrocodone or put it in baggies and sell it as heroin.”

In fact, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office says it’s not even possible to correctly mix fentanyl with other opioids outside of a lab. Dunn says drug dealers on the street are selling fentanyl-laced products without people even knowing full-well the deadly effects it could have.

“If you’re buying anything on the street and you think it’s to get your opioid high, you better be careful because you could be the next overdose,” Dunn said.

Dunn says this form of non-pharmaceutical fentanyl is being trafficked into the country from places outside the U.S. — like China and Mexico – and the only real way to slow down the fatalities caused by it is keeping it out of the country altogether.

And with the hugely popular Bonnaroo festival kicking off just west of Chattanooga, experts worry what will happen if fentanyl makes it there.