A batch of heroin laced with fentanyl, an opioid painkiller 100 times stronger than morphine, could worsen an overdose crisis ravaging Tippecanoe County.
Heroin purchased recently by undercover police officers was mixed with the powerful prescription drug, which can be deadly in extremely small amounts, said Tim Payne, who heads the Tippecanoe County Drug Task Force.
In the midst of what officials have called an opioid epidemic, the traces of fentanyl were the first found in Tippecanoe County, Payne said. But the potent opiate has been inside Indiana much longer.
"We really started hearing about it quite frequently last year in southern Indiana," Payne said. "We were actually shocked that we weren’t seeing it up here."
West Lafayette Police Chief Jason Dombkowski, who recently attended a summit at New York Police Department headquarters on the nation's heroin crisis, said heroin and fentanyl inundated many eastern U.S. cities before sweeping across the Midwest, where their effects are just now being realized.
But one can look to New York City to see the drugs' deadly potential. In 2016, heroin and fentanyl were responsible for 90 percent of the city's record-high overdoses, according to The New York Times.
Closer to home, fentanyl has been seized in large amounts and has surged overdoses in several Indiana cities, according to IndyStar, raising concerns that Tippecanoe County could be on the brink of a similarly dangerous episode.
"We have a lot of public health stakeholders at the table, and law enforcement," Dombkowski said. "But we don’t have all the solutions to this wave that is hitting our community."
Heroin abuse epidemic
In Tippecanoe County, data suggest the wave of heroin abuse has yet to crest.