May 16, 2017

After a drug search, a cop brushes some residue off his shirt and within minutes falls to the floor overdosing.

“I started talking weird. I slowly felt my body shutting down. I could hear them talking, but I couldn’t respond. I was in total shock. ‘No way I’m overdosing,’ I thought.”
Patrolman Rob Smith grabbed [Patrolman Chris] Green as he began to fall to the floor, and the ambulance crew already there....

“Apparently, I was in denial. I denied the [opiod antidote] Narcan,” Green said, until other officers insisted and eventually, at the hospital, three additional doses had to be given to completely revive him....

Chief John Lane agreed, saying his officer is lucky the effects hit him before he left the station that night. “If he would have been alone, he would have been dead. That’s how dangerous this stuff is. What if he went home and got it on his family members?... We’re going to try and seize that car and destroy it. How do we neutralize it? It only takes one granule (of carfentanyl) to kill an adult...”

63 comments:

rhhardin said...

That's why there are pill cutters, to cut granules into granulettes.

Balfegor said...

That doesn't sound like a recreational narcotic. That sounds like a chemical weapon, frankly. And the fellow they arrested had it all over his clothes??

Martin said...

My wife is on fentanyl for a chronic pain condition (I think carfentanyl is much stronger, used for large animals) and you don't take fentanyl as a pill or liquid, it is too powerful. It is in a patch and the release rate is given in micrograms per hour. A microgram is a millionth of a gram--most pills we encounter are measured in milligrams (thousandths of a gram).

If carfentanyl is in common use in the illegal drug trade, these locations need to be treated as HazMat sites.

Wikipedia has a very interesting entry.

Sebastian said...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yet another distraction from Sessions' irrational effort to firm up prosecution for drug-dealing.

Fernandinande said...

Effects of Prohibition on Consumption and Public Health

"It has frequently been observed that drug prohibition tends to drive out the weaker and milder forms of drugs, and to increase the availability and use of stronger and more dangerous drugs (see, e.g., Brecher, 1972). This has been so often reported that many analysts speak of it as an "iron law" of drug prohibition. This "law" holds because milder drugs are usually bulkier, harder to hide and smuggle, and less remunerative."

Owen said...

Wait: this stuff is the *antidote* to the illegal drug? And it is *this* potent?

Scary. And unsustainable. No wonder people fall over dead from OD.

Nonapod said...

Substances that can completely debilitate or even kill on contact are pretty terrifying. I remember a story about researcher who was infamously killed by accidently spilling a few small drops of dimethylmercury on her latex gloves.

Lyssa said...

I'm a little confused here about how the drug actually got into his body. Was it absorbed through his skin through that tiny contact? That's terrifying.

Fernandinande said...

I'm rather surprised They are not advertising the wonderful true diversity of the people in the car, but at the same time not surprised that only un-American news doesn't hide it.

madAsHell said...

Carfentanil is a Schedule II substance under the Controlled Substances Act and is used as a tranquilizing agent for elephants and other large mammals. The lethal dose range for carfentanil in humans is unknown. However, as noted, carfentanil is approximately 100 times more potent than fentanyl, which can be lethal at the 2-milligram range, depending on route of administration and other factors.

Interesting, the spell checker doesn't like it either.

Bad Lieutenant said...

rhhardin, just curious: will you ever make, or in your opinion have you ever made, a worthwhile contribution to this blog, one that is of interest or value to people other than yourself?

Hint 1: ham radio doesn't interest anyone. You may come into your own after the destruction of Western civilization and its tech base, but even then, you seem unlikely to be of use to anyone here.

Hint 2: while your misogyny is mildly amusing as performance art, and certainly the hostess needs a spur from time to time, nobody here believes that you would know whether pussy smells like tuna, herring, or wet paint, because nobody here believes you have ever seen, let alone touched or smelt a live woman's hoo-ha. (Everyone believes you have a teeny tiny radio, though.)

I'm just trying to understand your angle. You do know that you're weird like snake suspenders, don't you? Don't be daunted, by all means keep on the way you're going, but what, in fact, are you doing here? Aren't there autistic AARL (but I repeat myself) blogs where you could be valuable? Maybe you should start one. Or perhaps you are normal compared to those guys?

Or talk about your past. Did you ever do anything that would interest anyone? Maybe you were a hero of some kind and suffered terrible injuries that makes you only able to talk about shortwave and watch rom-con DVDs?

BTW I eagerly hope for your response because you never respond to anyone here. It's like you have a transmitter but no receiver.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Wow. That's some dangerous shit.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Owen: NARCAN is the antidote. Carfentanyl is the new much more powerful version of fentanyl that the cop got on his clothes.

Ann Althouse said...

@Bad Lieutenant

rh is the #1 commenter on this blog. He's completely consistent both in regularity and in style over the longest period of time. He's invariably original and concise. It's an amazing longterm performance that interesting and valuable to me.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Substances that can completely debilitate or even kill on contact are pretty terrifying.

Nitrobenzene as depicted in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novella The Red Box was pretty fearsome.

Carfentanyl is suspected of having been used by Russia in the Nord-Ost operation. Many deaths occurred because it was kept secret even after the rescue operation and the medics were not warned or prepared for its use.

Fentanyl is dispensed, I believe, in a lollipop format, for breakthrough pain. Incidentally the danger in this case was because the fentanyl molecule is so small it can readily be absorbed through the mouth or skin.

Ann Althouse said...

"nobody here believes that you would know whether pussy smells like tuna, herring, or wet paint, because nobody here believes you have ever seen, let alone touched or smelt a live woman's hoo-ha"

The use of "smelt" was good.

Ann Althouse said...

"rh is the #1 commenter on this blog."

Meade is the #1 commenter in this room.

Ann Althouse said...

But where is Bissage?

Bad Lieutenant said...

Yes, Ann, I daresay you are tender of him, but I don't see it, wherefore I ask. To me he is another Eggagog (whom I enjoyed), except that he appears serious.

furious_a said...

Stealing from Balfegor, sounds almost like VX.

As much about the toxicity, I wonder how long the Carafentanyl(?) remains active/dangerous in the environment. Some nerve agents can remain active for weeks if sheltered from rain/sunlight (indoors, under cars, bottoms of fences).

madAsHell said...

I'm just trying to understand your angle.

I'm here because Facebook has far too many cute puppy/kitty/baby videos. What's your angle?

RLB_IV said...

I miss Bissage but a daily dose of RH is delightful.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Smelt, lulz, good one. (Happy that you're happy, I exist to serve.)

Ah, commenters of days gone by. Much missed. Bissage...betamax3000...Sir Archy...Trooper York...chip ahoy...

Is rh #1 in number of posts? He does grind away. Too bad he can't post by shortwave.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Dear mAH,

1) I didn't ask you. It's nice to know that people are tender of him. He obviously needs it.

2) If rh (who would first have to condescend to acknowledge my existence or that of any commenter here; I do not recall him ever having responded to a commenter) cared to know, I might tell him. I doubt very sincerely that he does.

3) back to the topic, did anyone hear this about Prince?!? https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1344287/latest-hollywood-craze-is-for-berry-flavoured-lollipops-laced-with-powerful-opiates/

"Police now believe the music legend, who died from an fentanyl overdose in April, may have obtained a supply of the lethal lollipops shortly before his death."

Really, is that so? Everyone is so respectful and hushed and mumbled about it, I never got the true word; assumed it was Oxycontin.

rhhardin said...

@Bad Lieutenant Morse code was the original twitter. It encourages you to be concise.

One of the problems with keyboard morse is you lose that and the guy goes on and on about something with unchanging rhythm. It's like The New Yorker.

Iambic paddles are bad enough in removing the expressive possibilties of the dash, a little longer or shorter, a little early or late.

stever said...

As some one here since 2004 I would agree that RH is a great commenter. Hard to enter in the fourth quarter and understand the whole game. But some try.

rhhardin said...

Herring. It's from trimethylamine, that decaying fish produce. Tuna isn't decaying when you encounter it and just smells like tuna.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

This sounds like a scene from Reefer Madness.

If this drug is that powerful no point in worrying about it. The epidemic will burn out very quickly.

My cynical nature says the cop was partaking on the side.

Bad Lieutenant said...

My God, what have I done? :-)

OK rh, but just so you know, a healthy woman doesn't smell like that; that's vaginosis.

BTW perhaps I was wrong when I said you couldn't post via morse:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/01/gmail-tap-google-april-fools-day_n_1394635.html

ceowens said...

My son is a Paramedic and has heard stories in his professional community of folks having been administered Narcan more than once in the same day.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Bill, R.O.T,

If this drug is that powerful no point in worrying about it. The epidemic will burn out very quickly.

Apparently, people aren't going to Superfly and asking for fentanyl, they're asking for heroin, and it's being cut with this stuff, because, I suppose, cheaper and more powerful (though not quite the same characteristics in the respective highs of fentanyl and heroin), to make up for all the baking soda and mannitol it's cut with to make the bulk look right.

The operational problem is: it's hard to get such a tiny dose evenly mixed with its diluents in solid form. When there's, proportionally added, one flake of fentanyl per dime bag, and you take just a tiny little piece off the top, but that's where the flake is, then you get the whole flake all at once and OD because that flake is more powerful than the rest of the bag.

Bad Lieutenant said...

BTW rh -

re: Iambic paddles, morse KB

While I'm not at all interested in CBs, I am quite interested in espionage. These modern keying techniques would seem useful to disguise the operator's "fist."

Dave from Minnesota said...

In La Crosse, they need volunteers to walk around and pick up all the needles. According to the La Crosse Tribune, the city is giving out 23,000 free needles a month.

My questions is, why are we reviving junkies? Who cares if they die. Once you get that bad you will never be a productive member of society.

Dave from Minnesota said...

Bill, its been said that Heroin is like Communism. It kills most of its victims, so we forget how bad it is and it comes back every few decades.

madAsHell said...

Hey, Bad Lt, no disrespect.

I understand about half of what rhhardin writes. The stuff I do understand, I find well-crafted, clever, and very terse.

Yancey Ward said...

Fentanyl derivatives are trivial for a chemist to make, but drugs like carfentanyl are so potent that it can be extremely dangerous for even a careful chemist to make safely.

madAsHell said...

Betamax3000?

I'm pretty sure that he still haunts this blog using another name.

Yancey Ward said...

furious_a asked:

"As much about the toxicity, I wonder how long the Carafentanyl(?) remains active/dangerous in the environment?"

Probably quite a long time. The main routes to degradation would be oxidation of the piperidine nitrogen and hydrolysis of the the ester and the amide portions of the molecule, neither of which would occur rapidly. I would guess that if you left it out on table as a powder exposed to the air, the half-life would be on the order of a year or more (with the emphasis on more). If the powder isn't particularly hygroscopic, then decades would be my guess.

Wince said...

That is one messy car.

Lucien said...

Heard a radio piece (NPR??)a few weeks ago on carfentanyl.The story was that Chinese suppliers were using this stuff as a substitute for other opiates in pills, because the required dosage was so small compared to the cost of fabrication. It was supposedly responsible for an upsurge in deadly ODs, especially where emergency responders were not alert to the possibility of a carfentanyl OD.

Caveat: horror stories about drugs, especially when credulous reporters may parrot whatever LEOs tell them about how bad drugs are, can be significantly overblown.

(Once upon a time, someone at Slate (Saletan?) had a recurring "Stupid Drug Story" column that called-out silly things said about how bad various drugs were. Haven't seen it in a while, but of course Slate now has only about two kinds of stories: Trump is horrible; and somebody did something racist -- so they must have been inspired by Trump.)

FullMoon said...

Dave from Minnesota said...

In La Crosse, they need volunteers to walk around and pick up all the needles. According to the La Crosse Tribune, the city is giving out 23,000 free needles a month.

My questions is, why are we reviving junkies? Who cares if they die. Once you get that bad you will never be a productive member of society.
5/16/17, 12:18 PM


Friend of a young relative od'd and died last year.
Late twenties, homeowner, wife and kids. Service manager at large auto dealership. Reliable, upright middle class white man.

All addicts are not homeless degenerates.

Relative tells me that heroin is dirt cheap, and a lot of people snort it and smoke it recreationally.

Anonymous said...

"rh is the #1 commenter on this blog. He's completely consistent both in regularity and in style over the longest period of time. He's invariably original and concise. It's an amazing longterm performance that interesting and valuable to me."

I don't think it's an act, but that's OK. Rh often interacts with me when I address him. So how are your big chest and thigh muscles rh?

Ann Althouse said...

"Bissage...betamax3000...Sir Archy...Trooper York...chip ahoy..."

betamax3000 is here, by another name

Bissage, I'm worried that perhaps he died.

The other 3 decamped elsewhere after getting annoyed at something that, quite frankly, I can't remember. Okay, Meade just explained it. It was some kind of perfect storm of: 1. People who were irked at the Court's ssm decision and my attitude toward them (which was: adapt and be positive going forward), 2. Some of the things I said that fall under the heading "splooge stooge," 3. The comments-moderating function was broken and we could only moderate by individual deletions, 4. A couple real and evil trolls who were doing worse things than I saw because I don't read people I know to be trolls (including doxxing), 5. Some nasty back and forth between regular commenters that was getting out of hand, 6. My seeing Meade staying up late deleting comments and summarily deciding we shouldn't be living like that (with no obvious prospect that we'd ever be able to turn them back on, though I did after getting some special attention from Google, fixing the moderation).

FullMoon said...

Ann Althouse said...

"Bissage...betamax3000...Sir Archy...Trooper York...chip ahoy..."

betamax3000 is here, by another name

Bissage, I'm worried that perhaps he died.


I miss the drunk stand up comic.
Maybe Harvey Kietel has info on their whereabouts?

Dave from Minnesota said...

Fullmoon, I know a few recovering alcoholics. They are fine citizens. How often do we hear of recovering heroin, meth, etc addicts who are productive citizens? Maybe there are a fair number of success stories, but there seems to be few.

stever said...

Yeah I miss those guys also but there are others I miss more. Palladian, Ruth Anne, Knoxgirl, Sippian Cottage

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I'm all for the freedom of people to use whatever drugs they want as long as THEY face the consequences....including death either self administered or by their other illegal actions, like stealing and getting shot.

Innocent people like the cop in the story should not have to put up with this danger. Innocent children who are caught up and destroyed by their worthless drug addled relatives too. Unfortunately, as a society we have decided that we need to try to 'save' people who by their own actions have demonstrated that they don't want to be saved. I think it is a waste of time. Save the children. Save the rest of society from your bad decisions. Drink yourself to death. Drug yourself into oblivion. My empathy quota is all used up.

As to smelly fish .....Surströmming hands down the very very very worst!
Irish people try Surströmming

Actually a pretty funny group of videos where they are trying all sorts of (to them) weird food. I like the one where they are trying weird American food, such as peanut butter sandwiches.

FullMoon said...

Dave from Minnesota said...

Fullmoon, I know a few recovering alcoholics. They are fine citizens. How often do we hear of recovering heroin, meth, etc addicts who are productive citizens? Maybe there are a fair number of success stories, but there seems to be few.

5/16/17, 1:15 PM


I have known some.
If you do not know any addicts, you will probably not know any recovering addicts.
Most well known recovered addicts are entertainers. I find their recovery stories detrimental. Sends the message that it's ok to do the drug 'cause so and so did it and is clean now. Makes me sick when celebs od and are honored. Micheal Kackson od'd. Prince also, Heath Ledger, couple of others I don't recall. Their deaths should be used to show that even the rich and famous who seem to have it made can become helplessly addicted. Need more examples like Whitney Houston who went from beautiful, rich and talented to looking like a crack ho, dead in the tub.

toxdoc said...

We have seen similar incidents with LEOs handling evidence. While dermal uptake may have been taking place, it was likely he got a toxic dose via inhalation when he got the product airborne while brushing off his clothes. one reason your breathing protection is the last thing you removing when doffing PPE is so you don't inhale any resuspended particulate from your outer garments.

I Callahan said...

Most well known recovered addicts are entertainers. I find their recovery stories detrimental. Sends the message that it's ok to do the drug 'cause so and so did it and is clean now.

I believe this to be true to a point, at least, depending on which entertainers. Robert Downey is a good example of an exception to that rule. Anyone who followed anything he did during his drug addiction years can only come to one conclusion - to NOT do that. He even said himself afterwards that the only way he was able to stop was to be thrown in jail.

I've known a few people who were drug addicts - the percentage of deaths, or near deaths, exceeds those who come back. I know of only one such person.

Addiction terrifies me. My father was a narcotics officer in the 1970's when the drug of choice was heroin also. I heard enough horror stories that it kept me on the straight and narrow. I was so afraid of getting hooked on Vicodin when I had my heart surgery that I only took two - one each night after my surgery - and refused to take any afterward.

Just some rambling thoughts...

Lance said...

Tangent: newspaper websites need to prominently identify their location in the top banner. At first I thought the story was from East Liverpool, UK. But only after looking through a couple stories on the home page did I figure out this was East Liverpool, WV.

If you run a newspaper website, go fix it now please.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

What led you to this article, Professor? Was it Homer and Marilyn Althouse's 60th Wedding Aniversary?

http://www.morningjournalnews.com/life/anniversaries/2017/04/althouses-celebrate-60th-year/

And with no sarcasm intended: Yay, Homer and Marylin! Congratulations!

wild chicken said...

Opioids like lortab and Percocet make you feel fabulous. They gave me some for my back spasms last year and the speedball-like effect surprised me.

Seems to me we were better off when people could legally get that and not resort to heroin and fentanyl.

Dave from Minnesota said...

Lance, I thought the same thing. Of note...this is the town where the two junkies were pictured half dead in the front seat of their car with a small child in a car seat in the rear.

I Callahan....this is what is strange....people think they can inject poisons in their body and nothing bad will happen.

Related note.....a junkie in UW-La Crosse overdosed in his dorm room a year ago. If the Democrat succeed in getting free (sic) college, do we try to get our tax dollars back from people like him?

JohnAnnArbor said...

rhhardin: One of the problems with keyboard morse is you lose that and the guy goes on and on about something with unchanging rhythm. It's like The New Yorker.

Comedy. Gold.

matthew49 said...

Opioids cause respiratory depression, even to the point of complete apnea. That's how people generally die from opioid overdose. Carfentanil is useful as a large animal tranquilizer/anesthetic because it is extremely potent but does not cause apnea in those animals, so you can knock over a horse with a carfentanil dart but the horse keeps breathing. Unfortunately, when it was tried on primates (this was probably thirty years ago or more), it proved to be a profound respiratory depressant, consistent with its potency. So it's not useful in human anesthesia or pain medicine and you can't use it to safely take down a gorilla.

Original Mike said...

Blogger Bad Lieutenant said..."Hint 1: ham radio doesn't interest anyone. You may come into your own after the destruction of Western civilization and its tech base, but even then, you seem unlikely to be of use to anyone here."

It's interesting to me, rh. Please keep it up.

Caroline said...

Au contraire, @fernandinande, "If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. The scariest part: this might not have happened with El Chapo in charge." --el chapo and the secret history of the heroin crisis, esquire august 2016.

Bad Lieutenant said...

stever said...
Yeah I miss those guys also but there are others I miss more. Palladian, Ruth Anne, Knoxgirl, Sippian Cottage
5/16/17, 1:19 PM

Sure, 'twere invidious to particularize, there are many more. (Chef Mojo does come to mind, as I fear he may have departed this life.)

khesanh0802 said...

@Full Moon Who can forget John Belushi, or Bill Evans or Chet Baker or Janis Joplin? Here's one scary list.

Marc in Eugene said...

Didn't realize that 'Sippican Cottage' used to comment here-- I read his blog regularly: always thoughtful commentary on important things, over there.

Michael K said...

"I remember a story about researcher who was infamously killed by accidently spilling a few small drops of dimethylmercury on her latex gloves."

I was at Dartmouth when she did that. She used the wrong kind of gloves, not latex. It took her days to die and there was no antidote.

Carfentanil is 1000 times more potent than fentanil, not 100.

And it is absorbed preferentially through the skin. There are quite a few of those drug delivery systems now. A woman came into an ER in shock about ten years ago. They could not figure out what was the matter with her until the ER doc took off all her clothes. On her back was her husband's BP medicine skin patch. It had transferred in bed.

Michael McNeil said...

Actually, there are more amateur radio “hams” now than ever in the United States.