DEA report: Mass. had second highest number of fentanyl cases nationwide in 2016
Massachusettes reported the second-highest number of cases in 2016 involving the synthetic drug fentanyl, according to a federal report released this week.
According to MassLive, the Drug Enforcement Agency reported Massachusetts had 3,911 fentanyl-connected seizures and arrests last year. Ohio had the most cases at 7,971.
Fentanyl’s “extreme potency level means a small quantity of the drug can cause mass overdose events, relative to other drugs,” the report stated.
According to the press release, fentanyl is often mixed with diluting agents and sold as heroin. Fentanyl is about 40 times more powerful than heroin.
The report noted a fentanyl and heroin milling operation in Lawrence that authorities seized in August 2016, as well as a heavy concentration of Dominican drugs traffickers along the Interstate 95 corridor that distribute fentanyl and heroin, according to MassLive.
In July, the top drug enforcement official in New England told the Boston Globe that the number of fentanyl-related deaths in the region is “like no other epidemic” he’s ever seen in his 27 years at the DEA, calling the drug “manufactured death.”
Opioids were linked to 2,069 deaths in Massachusetts in 2016, up 15 percent from the year before. According to the report, Massachusetts ranked fourth in overdose death rates, behind Ohio, Connecticut, and West Virginia.
