The victims all survived, police said. Authorities used naloxone, a overdose-reversing drug that Burlington police carry, to save some of them, police said.
Fentanyl is impossible for users to detect. It has been showing up in batches of heroin in Vermont with increasing frequency, police said. It caused 29 fatal overdoses in the state in 2015, up from 18 in 2014, according to the Vermont Department of Health.
Musician Prince fatally overdosed on fentanyl in April at his home in Minnesota.
“The presence of fentanyl in the Burlington heroin supply has been rising steadily based on information we have been getting from the addicted community and the Vermont Forensic Laboratory,” Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said in a press release.
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How does fentanyl get in heroin isn’t it manufactured by big pharma ?
Wow. Paco DeFrancis, these people *are* our kids – yours, mine, the community’s. Every one of them was once someone’s baby, and people gazed on them with love and hope and dreams. And each of these people has gifts still to offer us, if only we can treat their addiction as the disease it is, and treat them with the respect *every* person deserves.
There are no throw-away people. None.
What do we do with addicts? We help in any way that we can. To those who don’t understand the severity of the problem, I hope that you are never touched by this burden in your family. It affects every aspect of your daily life. As the mother of two men who are recovering addicts (thankfully clean for a couple of years) I’m very thankful to the courts, mental health organizations and recovery centers that offer their services to help people get and stay clean. My sons work, pay taxes and live constructive lives and unfortunately made some bad decisions but they’ve paid for it and then some.
We need to keep on trying to save the lives of drug addicts. They deserve it.