Fentanyl is some nasty, deadly business.  In it's proper use and form, it provides relief for our worst physical agonies.  When it's abused, it is a murderous deceiver promising ecstasy but delivering death.

Drug abuse dot gov describe fentanyl as "a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent.  It is a Schedule II prescription drug, and it is typically used to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery.....On the street it's known as Dance Fever, Friend, Goodfellas, Jackpot, Murder 8, and Tango & Cash."

Fentanyl has been around since the 1960s, and it works on the receptors in the brain. A CBC report says that potency is the main reason why fentanyl is so dangerous. " When someone takes an opioid, it binds to receptors in the brain and helps release our natural endorphins. Those endorphins are produced after we eat, rest, or do something enjoyable — the things that make us feel good.  Fentanyl can make you feel really good because it's so powerful. "

The problem is that fentanyl is so powerful that it takes so very little to be fatal and Yakima Coroner Jim Curtice says he has found overdose victims who have taken doses many times the lethal amount, enough to virtually kill the victim on the spot.

Appearing on KIT's Morning News Program, Curtice says overdose deaths are increasing in the County and he says the pandemic only adds to the problem.  He says the loneliness, isolation and boredom of pandemic restrictions can and has pushed some victims to relapse and put them back on a collision course with deadly street fentanyl.

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