Potent opioid blamed in death of Prince has made its way here

A powerful opioid blamed for hundreds of overdose deaths on the East Coast appears to have made its way to Houston.

Drug analysts at the Houston Forensic Science Center found fentanyl 10 times this year in fake pharmaceuticals and powders, according to a news release issued early Tuesday.

Fentanyl is a potent opioid used in numerous pharmaceutical drugs that is estimated to be 50 times as potent as pure heroin. As abuse of prescription painkillers skyrocketed over the last 15 years, with drugs like OxyContin and Oxycodone, law enforcement has seen a notable rise in the abuse of fentanyl, which has been blamed for a spree of fatal overdoses in New England and other parts of the country in recent years.

Doctors have used the drug since the 1960s to treat serious pain. In Houston, analysts twice have found the drug or its derivatives in powders and eight other times in fake drugs, according to HFSC spokeswoman Ramit Plushnick-Masti.

“Fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives are dangerous because they are more lethal than other illicit drugs, and it can take just about 2 milligrams for a user to overdose,” she wrote in a news release announcing the findings.

The drug’s effects include disorientation, coughing, sedation and respiratory distress or cardiac arrest, and they are rapid and profound, usually occurring within minutes of exposure, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

According to the DEA, overseas labs in China are mass-producing fentanyl and fentanyl-related compounds and marketing them to drug trafficking groups in Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Last week in Philadelphia, public health officials said that fatal fentanyl overdoses had spiked seven-fold between 2013 and 2015. Farther north, in New Hampshire, fentanyl has outpaced heroin in lethality: In 2015, it killed 158 people while heroin killed 32, according to a New York Times story from March.

More than 300 people died from fentanyl-related overdoses from October 2014 to October 2015, an increase of 53 percent over the previous year, the Times reported. Similarly, Vermont and Mane both saw significant spikes in fentanyl-related deaths.

Fentanyl also made headlines in April, after media reports that after pop star Prince’s death, authorities found some pills laced with the drug at his home.

“Fentanyl and … derivatives are dangerous because they are more lethal … and it can take just about 2 milligrams for a user to overdose.” Ramit Plushnick-Masti, spokeswoman, Houston Forensic Science Center

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