FENTANYL

A federal court finds Walgreens, CVS and Walmart helped create an oversupply of addictive painkillers.

Marijuana Stock photo of marijuana. Health officials in Connecticut are warning residents that a rash of recent statewide overdoses may be linked to fentanyl-laced marijuana. (Scott Cramer/Getty Images/iStockphoto)HARTFORD, Ct. — Health officials in Connecticut are warning residents that a rash of recent statewide overdoses may be linked to fentanyl-laced marijuana. “This is the first lab confirmed case of marijuana with fentanyl in Connecticut and possibly the first confirmed case in the United States,” Juthani stated. >> Related: Drug overdose deaths top 100,000 annually for first time, CDC says©2021 Cox Media Group

The parents of a 2-year-old were arrested after their daughter died of a fentanyl overdose, deputies say.

Comedian Fuquan Johnson died in Los Angeles after taking fentanyl-laced cocaine. Similar overdoses have been reported from New York to Nebraska.

The Flagler County Sheriff's Office conducts a major drug bust.

Fentanyl bust U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers took a closer look Aug. 24 at a package manifested as “wood crafts art and technique of making" and found fentanyl concealed within the boxes. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Would-be fentanyl smugglers got a little crafty at an express consignment hub in Memphis, Tennessee, recently, but the ruse ultimately failed. The boxes had been bound for a southeast Houston residence. According to customs agents, an X-ray identified anomalies within two of the boxes, and investigators discovered an off-white powdery substance along the inside linings of the display boxes. The substance, later confirmed in lab testing to be fentanyl, had been placed “within gaps created by a double walling of the interior of the boxes,” the CBP stated.

The official count easily eclipsed the state's prior record level of fatal drug overdoses and mirrored a national increase in overdose deaths, the report said. A key factor was the prevalence of fentanyl — involved in about 71% of the state's overdose deaths for the year, according to the report, issued Tuesday. Another factor contributing to the 49% increase in Kentucky's drug overdose deaths was the availability of potent, inexpensive methamphetamines, the report said. Nationally, overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government reported recently. That estimate far eclipses the high of about 72,000 drug overdose deaths reached the previous year and amounts to a 29% increase.

According to the most recent data from the CDC, overdose deaths in the United States rose 29.4% in 2020.

Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CNBC's "The News with Shepard Smith" that she's hopeful that the spike in drug overdoses will not be lasting.

Former Hawaii QB Colt Brennan ingested something laced with fentanyl before dying. The drug has been linked to a high number of opioid deaths in the U.S.

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A death investigation is underway after Brevard County deputies said a body was found in a submerged car in Malabar. Deputies said the car was found underwater near the St. Johns Management area boat ramp located at 4350 Malabar Road in Malabar. READ: 53 Fentanyl dealers arrested in 9-month operation, Orlando police sayNo other details have been released. Stay tuned to Channel 9 Eyewitness News for updates. READ: Potential Tropical Cyclone Three forecast to bring heavy rain, flooding to Gulf Coast

ORLANDO, Fla. — Police said they arrested 53 Fentanyl dealers over a span of nine months during a special operation in Orlando. Police said the department’s Special Enforcement Division’s Overdose Unit made the arrests during “Operation Good Call.” They said that name came from the many phone calls detectives made to buy Fentanyl and then subsequently arrest the dealers. READ: COVID-19 delta strain could become dominant variant“Fentanyl addiction is a problem that impacts the entire community, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or age,” said Police Chief Orlando Rolón in a statement. “The drug is so potent, it is claiming lives at a rapidly increasing rate.”The department’s overdose unit is set to discuss the operation at 10 a.m. on Friday. READ: 3 people found dead in Parramore apartment buildingStay tuned to Channel 9 Eyewitness News for updates.

Deaths from fentanyl overdoses have jumped by more than 2,100% in five years as the powerful drug has flooded the state Family members whose relatives died from pills containing fentanyl outside the Roybal federal building on in Los Angeles, California Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images When San Francisco police seized seven kilos of powder-filled baggies containing the deadly opioid fentanyl last week, the city’s police chief warned the bust contained “enough lethal overdoses to wipe

A Michigan trooper was given Narcan during a traffic stop after he was exposed to a drug, officials say.

Bennett was arrested on Wednesday when she had reported to the probation office, since she was on probation for drug offenses. That initial report was listed as a “death,” not an overdose death, and included no indications of an overdose. “Every overdose death in Flagler County is investigated and prosecuted as a homicide. There is no more slap on the wrist for selling drugs that cause overdose deaths. In 2016, fentanyl was the leading cause of drug-overdose deaths, with 704 such deaths recorded.

60 Minutes Archives: Buying fentanyl online from China Fifty times more potent than heroin, Fentanyl was available on the internet and could be delivered through the mail.

CLERMONT, Fla. – Two people are behind bars after authorities in Lake County found drugs and firearms during a drug bust at a Clermont home. Law enforcement from the Clermont, Eustis, and Leesburg Police Departments worked to serve a search warrant Friday on a suspected drug house. “The investigation began as the result of numerous citizen complaints that drugs were being dealt at the home,” deputies said. “Detectives seized a 2015 custom Dodge Charger, a 2003 Ford van, a 2015 Dodge Durango, and a 2014 custom Ford F-350, as well as the large amount of cash that was located,” detectives said. The Department of Children and Families was brought in to take care of the children living in the home with dangerous drugs including Fentanyl.

Susanne Rachel Whitaker, a 41-year-old resident of a second-floor apartment at European Village in Palm Coast, fell from her balcony early Sunday morning. The Flagler County Sheriffs Office is describing the incident as suspicious.The 911 dispatch center got a call at 4:43 that morning reporting the fall. Brett Lalomia, 49, told deputies he was Whitakers boyfriend of six years and a resident at the same apartment. According to a sheriffs incident report, he told deputies that he wasnt sure what had taken place. Lalomia told deputies that his girlfriend allegedly does inject fentanyl, and that it is very likely that she took it that day, according to the report.

The 26-year-old Mai was indicted in July on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Samantha Stefanczak. Buffington testified that the amount of fentanyl found in Stefanczaks system was not high enough to cause her death. He said she had other drugs in her system and those amounts were also not high enough to cause her death. Buffington testified that it was unknown what caused Stefanczak to have that "medical event." He said none of the drugs found in her system, including fentanyl, were in a high enough dosage to kill her.

Mai, 26, was indicted in July on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Samantha Stefanczak. Mai faced life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder. Immediately after a clerk read the not guilty verdict Mai was embraced by one of his attorneys, Allison Thero. The medical examiner ruled Stefanczaks death was caused by complications from synthetic opioid toxicity with a contributing factor of benzodiazepine intoxication. Buffington testified that the amount of fentanyl found in Stefanczaks system was not high enough to cause her death.

The measure would allow the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to permanently place all fentanyl analogues into the same legal category as heroin and cocaine. At the same time, the agreement would ease some of the strict rules governing research around fentanyl analogues, according to the text seen by Reuters. Researchers, including some in the federal government, have complained the proposed permanent restrictions on fentanyl analogues could hamper their ability to develop new antidotes to drug overdoses. The DEA in February 2018 temporarily classified all fentanyl analogues as Schedule 1 drugs, meaning they are highly addictive and have no medical use. Since the temporary order went into effect, Justice Department officials say it has helped deter chemists from creating as many new versions of fentanyl.

Unlike many cities in the United States that have seen violent crimes rates fall over the past few years, violent crime rates in Albuquerque remain stubbornly high. I view Operation Triple Beam as preparing the field for these efforts that will be coming in the weeks ahead. My top priority as Attorney General is to continue the fight against violent crime, and step it up wherever needed. Approximately half of all the arrests made under Operation Triple Beam have occurred in the last two years, though the program started in 2011. Marshals Service, to discuss more details of Operation Triple Beam.

Wikimedia Commons(CNN) - Nine members of a cross-border fentanyl smuggling ring were sentenced at a public hearing in a Chinese courtroom Thursday, a rare display by Beijing of its efforts to crack down on the highly-addictive drug. After three months of investigation, Chinese narcotics authorities busted the drug ring in a series of raids across the country, including in Hebei and Jiangsu provinces. Yu said that after the fentanyl was manufactured in China, it was sent overseas in postal packages. In a statement released in August, the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy claimed that China "continues to pour poison into our communities." He added that since 2012 the US had only shared six leads with Chinese authorities, three of which Yu claimed had led to joint investigations.

Hannelore Foerster/Getty Images(CNN) - Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug in the United States, but in some areas of the country, methamphetamine kills more people. In 2017, fentanyl was associated with 38.9% of all drug overdose deaths, an increase from 2016, when it was associated with 29% of all fatal overdoses. This is the second year that CDC analyzed fatal overdoses in this way. While fentanyl was the most common drug involved in fatal overdoses nationally, there was a geographic divide, the report said. In 2017, the latest year for which complete data is available, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses.

Fentanyl is driving drug overdose deaths in the U.S. overall, but in nearly half of the country, it's a different story. It's based on 2017 figures when there were more than 70,000 overdose deaths in the U.S., two-thirds of them involving opioids. Final 2018 data has not yet been released, but preliminary figures suggest that overdose deaths involving meth increased. Since the report is the first of its kind, how meth factored into overdose deaths regionally in the past isn't known. State meth deaths went from 150 in 2017 to 194 last year, vaulting meth to the top.

Nationwide, fentanyl played a role in nearly 4 out of 10 fatal overdoses in 2017, more than any other drug. AdvertisementIllicit fentanyl is thought to have penetrated the U.S. drug supply earliest and hardest in New England. AdvertisementIn January, California emergency room doctors and county health officials documented a rash of apparent fentanyl overdoses. As drug distributors cut fentanyl into all the drugs that make up a goofballers cocktail, deadly overdoses could increase. A database of drug death in California suggests that fentanyls increased presence is already being felt in the state.

Copyright 2019 CNNSAN FRANCISCO - Five inmates and eight deputies from a San Francisco County jail were taken to the hospital after exposure to a narcotic -- possibly fentanyl, authorities said. The San Francisco Fire Department responded Tuesday evening to a call from sheriff's deputies who found an unresponsive inmate at County Jail #4 at the Hall of Justice. The inmate, along with four others who showed symptoms, were given Narcan and transported to a local hospital, the San Francisco Sheriff's Department said in a statement. Eight deputies who administered CPR on scene were also exposed to the narcotic and taken to local hospitals. The fire department has cleared the affected area but it still needs to be decontaminated, authorities said.

One drug, fentanyl, is like rocket fuel in the sharp rise of the crisis. Matt Cronin: Gordon Jin. The United States Postal System has been, for many years, the most reliable way to smuggle drugs from China to the U.S. Rob Portman In Congress: It's primarily produced in laboratories in China and it's primarily coming to the United States through the United States mail system. It is a fact that these synthetic opioids are responsible for the overwhelming increase in overdose deaths in the United States.

An index designed to measure policy-related uncertainty around the world is hovering at its highest level ever. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index hit its second-highest level, 340, in June. "We found that high levels of policy uncertainty tended to depress investment, depress hiring, in industries that are most exposed to that government behavior," one of the index's founders Scott Baker told CNBC. Now, concerns about global economic uncertainty helped spur the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. Across the pondGlobal central banks have been easing at unprecedented levels, with debt in Europe and Japan at zero or negative interest rates, while still producing weak economic data.

Wikimedia Commons(CNN) - Six staff members at a prison in Connecticut were taken to local hospitals for possible exposure to fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid, the Connecticut Department of Correction said. An ambulance was called to the Cheshire Correctional Institute, a state prison, at 9 a.m. on Tuesday to take a correctional officer in medical distress to the hospital, the department said in a statement. The Department of Correction and Connecticut State Police are investigating. The correctional institution has 428 current staffers and emphasizes rewards for deserving inmates, including in educational programming, its website states. That potency means that police, first responders and prison staffers can overdose or suffer health effects after even a minor encounter with the drug.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday "I hope we don't" have a war with Iran, but it "would not last very long." In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump also explained his decision to call off military strikes on Iran in retaliation for its downing of a U.S military surveillance drone last week. Asked about the possibility of war with Iran. Trump said: "I can tell you that, it would not last very long." Trump suggested that he would not deploy U.S. troops to fight Iran if there were a conflict.