CRIME

With drug overdoses on another record pace, lethal carfentanil emerges in Milwaukee County

Crocker Stephenson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office, 933 W. Highland Ave.

In a year in which Milwaukee County is preparing for an unprecedented number of fatal drug overdoses, add a new and particularly pernicious killer, carfentanil, which the county's medical examiner's office on Tuesday linked to two more deaths.

And it's just beginning.

"We're expecting to find more," said the office's operational manager, Karen Domagalski.

"Every day, we have at least another overdose," she said.

A cocktail of drugs is often found: heroin mixed with carfentanil mixed with a prescription narcotic.

"The mix is killing them," she said.

News of two new deaths comes a day after the medical examiner's office reported Wisconsin's first death linked to carfentanil, a synthetic opioid used to sedate animals as large as hippos and elephants.

Carfentanil is 10,000 times more potent than morphine,100 times more potent than fentanyl, which itself is 50 times more potent than heroin.

With family still to be notified, the medical examiner's office has not yet released its reports on the two deaths.

Domagalski said both are men. One is a 39-year-old who died March 28 on the city's south side. The other is a 33-year-old who died April 7 on the city's north side.

Altogether, 72 people have died from overdoses this year, with 57 of those deaths opiate-related.

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The medical examiner's office said that, at the current pace, overdose deaths in Milwaukee County in 2017 could soar to 400.

Last year, a record 343 people died from drug overdoses in Milwaukee County. That outstripped 2015's toll of 255 deaths, which was itself a record.

Carfentanil can be found in various forms, including blotter paper, tablets and spray. It often resembles powdered cocaine or heroin and is sometimes mixed with those drugs to strengthen their impact. Unsuspecting users frequently die.

Immediately administering naloxone can reverse a carfentanil overdose, though because of the opioid's strength, multiple doses of naloxone are sometimes required.

Ross Baer, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, said communities in which carfentanil appears are hit hard.

"It hits with a vengeance," he said.

The drug was first detected last summer in Akron, Ohio. In less than a month, the city saw 236 overdoses, he said. Fourteen people died.

In less than a year, the drug has spread to New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Indiana, Rhode Island, Illinois, West Virginia and Kentucky.

On March 31, the Minnesota Department of Health reported five deaths in that state linked to carfentanil.