Fears over spiralling use of horror drug fentanyl that is FIFTY times stronger than heroin and killed 64,000 in the US last year
FEARS are spiralling over the horror "zombie" drug fentanyl that is FIFTY times stronger than heroin and killed more than 60,000 people in the US this year.
The highly addictive prescription painkiller has been branded "public enemy number one" by cops and social workers in the States.
Far cheaper and stronger than heroin, the death rate rocketed from 20,000 in 2016 to 64,000 this year.
More American residents have died from taking it in 2017 than the overall number of casualties in the Vietnam War.
Superstar Prince died after overdosing on fentanyl last year.
The addiction sweeping across the US has become so drastic in West Virginia that firefighters now spend more time administering Narcan, an opiod antidote injection, than putting out fires, reported .
In Ashtabula County, Ohio, the number of children in court custody quadrupled between 2014 and 2016 — largely because addicted parents could not cope, according to the Times.
Images of ghostly Rhonda Pasek, 50, and James Acord, 47, slumped in their motor in Ohio, after taking fentanyl with their four-year-old sitting in the back went viral in September.
Crack cocaine plagued poor neighbourhoods in the 1980s but the opiod epiemic is hooking "sons and daughters of police chiefs and mayors"; and the "elite are scared for their own families".
And the epidemic has spread across the Atlantic.
The horror drug killed at least 60 people in the UK between July 2017 and December last year.
Former undercover cop Neil Woods said: “We face a fairly apocalyptic future if the fentanyl problem is not tackled.
"There are more and more people dying, or coming close to it, because of this drug than ever before.
“If fentanyl becomes as widespread as it is already in North America, this will pile disaster on top of disaster.”
Robert Fraser died just after his 18th birthday last November after unknowingly taking fentanyl.
In December last year highly respected Army Captain Ben Jukes, 32, who secretly used heroin and cocaine to cope with stress, took a fatal overdose of fentanyl.
An inquest found that Jemma Longthorp, 20, from Headington, Oxon, had died from a cocktail of drugs she had bought online, including fentanyl.
Fentanyl is prescribed in the UK for pain relief for cancer sufferers and in palliative care, usually in the form of skin patches or lollipops. Without a prescription, possession carries a possible seven-year jail sentence, with life imprisonment for supply.
Ian Cruxton, of the National Crime Agency, said: “It is also bought on the dark web by middle-class people who wish to experience its effect as a drug in its own right.
"It can cause a very sudden death. With heroin, people may slowly fade in- to unconsciousness.
"With fentanyl people have dropped just like that.”
DEADLY ZOMBIE DRUG: What is Fentanyl?
Fentanyl is a strong opioid painkiller that is used by many patients around the world suffering from chronic conditions.
It works by stopping pain signals being sent to the nerves in the brain, meaning users do not suffer any discomfort.
Due to its strength, it is highly controlled by doctors and pharmacists and cannot be prescribed for children.
It can be administered in patch form or can be injected into the body via a needle or a drip.
Hampshire Police Detective Superintendent Paul Barton, head of organised and serious crime in Southampton, said a major operation revealed the drug is becoming alarmingly more common.
He said: "It's a cutting agent that is mixed with various drugs, and people don't know what they're taking. It's 100 times stronger than morphine, and people aren't used to the strength."
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