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UGA Expert Discusses Overdoses from Fake Pills

cap.rx.uga.edu

Investigators say early tests show a mixture of two synthetic opioids could be responsible for the string of overdoses and deaths that struck Middle Georgia earlier this week. According to the GBI, the fentanyl analogue was sold on the streets and labeled Percocet.  

Dr. Merrill Norton is a professor in the University of Georgia's College of Pharmacy and an expert on addiction. He says that when a rash of overdoses such as this occur, it is often because addicts aren’t buying the drug they think they’re buying.

“What the dealers are doing is they’re making counterfeit pills, in other words, they’re making them look like prescription drug pills,” according to Norton. "It's nonscientists, providing non-patients with nonmedical use of a deadly, deadly classification medication."

Dealers are also often unaware of the type of fentanyl they’re using, which Norton says can have dramatically different results depending on the type. He says the drugs are incredibly powerful. One type of fentanyl may be used during an open-heart surgery, while another can be used to take down an elephant.

Credit Macon Telegraph
Fake Percocet

“Fentanyl itself is 100 times more potent than morphine. And then it’s got a sister; it’s called sufentanil, that’s 200 times more potent than morphine; and then we've got an alpha sufentanil that's 400 times more potent. These are drugs that are used in anesthesia. Less than what goes on the head of a pin is enough to kill somebody.”

Georgia health officials say the yellow pills are still being tested.

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