Sacramento Health Officials Warn Laced Norco Pills Could Create Deadly Combination

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento County's Department of Public Health is giving a warning the community of a deadly drug combination that has put a dozen people in the emergency room, just in the last 48 hours.

The people who were poisoned reportedly ingested Norco pills that were contaminated by the chemical fentanyl – a synthetic opiate.

Fentanyl can speed up a user's high, but according to the Department of Public Health, it's deadly. The synthetic opiate is reported to be 80 times a strong as morphine, and hundreds of times more potent than heroin.

Metro Fire EMS Captain Scott Perryman says over the last week, ambulance crews have been dispatched more frequently to reports of overdoses, and they've been using a special cocktail to try and revive the patients.

Perryman says "Narcan is the antagonist to some of the opiate medications", and can reverse an overdose within seconds.
But Perryman says Narcan is not a magic fix.

Sacramento County Sheriff spokesman Tony Turnbull says his department hasn't encountered this drug combination before.
The biggest priority now is to figure out whether the drug is being distributed by a lone supplier, or by several dealers.

Both Perryman and Turnbull are warning the public to stay away from any controlled substance that's being sold on the streets.

Turnbull says, "you just never know, it's like playing Russian roulette."

There were 28,000 opiate deaths in the U.S. in 2014.