Louisville officials brace for overdoses from people using elephant tranquilizer

[TexasTowelie]

A dangerous street drug — an elephant tranquilizer never intended for humans — already has killed at least one person in Louisville.

That's one confirmed death.

Police, EMS and health officials are bracing for more.

"It's obviously a major concern because it is so deadly," said Officer Erik Velten, safety coordinator for Louisville Metro Police and a former EMT.

It's difficult to say how many people have been killed by carfentanil — a synthetic opioid 10,000 times more potent than morphine — here because routine toxicology tests don't detect it.

Read more: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2017/04/05/louisville-officials-brace-overdoses-people-using-elephant-tranquilizer/99875660/

[appleannie1943]

1. Pittsburgh had a couple of those. So did Stubenville, Ohio. That crap should not even be touched

let alone be put in a vein. http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/09/01/health-officials-warn-of-heroin-laced-with-animal-sedative/

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2017/01/16/police-ems-taking-extra-precautions-after-carfentanil-overdose-deaths/

[Warpy]

2. Some of the synthetic opiates out there are really bad news

The doses are supposed to be measured in micrograms, thousandths of a gram, tiny amounts that even the conscientious dealer with a triple beam balance can't manage because even if he's got the proportions right, mixing it up with whatever he's cutting his shit with is never even enough to prevent some of his customers from getting hot shots and dying.

It looks like they'll keep doing all the futile, idiotic things that don't work in the near future, at least, instead of going after manufacturers to clamp down on diversion outside the medical and veterinary systems. That might inconvenience industry, though, so we'll grow old and die waiting for them to consider doing that.

And too many people are getting rich or powerful enough on keeping drugs in the black market, so we're not going to see any sense there, either.

And yes, there have been deaths here from drugs laced with fentanyl.

[YOHABLO]

3. It's ''anything to get high'' mentality. They are incapable of getting high on life.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. Some junkies overdosed on this stuff outside my office in Canada

Three of them at once, only one left in an ambulance with lights flashing.

One of the cops who questioned us because someone in our building called 911 said there aren't going to be any street junkies left in five years because it's a death sentence.

[JohnnyRingo]

5. We had eight deaths in the first three days of April.

28 overdoses that were brought back in those same days in the medium sized city of Warren Ohio.

The problem is that the heroin gets cut at each level of dealing. People are adding synthetics to avoid a weak dilution. Eventually, it's nearly all cut because no one knows how many times it was stepped on previously.