‘A FIRST’

Fentanyl-Laced Drugs Kill Nine People in Just One Florida County Over the Weekend

Authorities in the county say the volume of deaths is highly unusual.

A batch of either marijuana or cocaine laced with fentanyl claimed the lives of nine people between 34 and 60 in a northern Florida county between Friday and Tuesday, police said. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Seven of the deaths were confirmed and police say the other two under investigation are likely to have the same cause. The deaths came after four people went into cardiac arrests and six were intubated, authorities said. “This is a first,” a sheriff’s office spokesperson told the Tallahassee Democrat. The local sheriff’s office and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency both pledged to keep investigating who sold the drugs. “I have not heard of any opioid poisoning here in the county as it relates to fentanyl,” Sheriff Morris A. Young said. “But on Friday, it was very apparent that it was here in the county, and we had about 15 calls related to it.”