Fentanyl: All it Takes is One Time

But Fentanyl is an extremely powerful synthetic opioid. It is fifty times stronger than heroin, and just one 2 milligram dose can be lethal. Dealers combine Fentanyl, an inexpensive additive, with many other drugs to maximize profit. Fentanyl’s wholesale price is $6 per gram and heroin’s wholesale price is $60 per gram. The street-level price for Oxycodone is $1000 per gram. Swapping two pills that look exactly the same, but differ greatly in cost, is profitable for dealers. Dealers also combine Oxycodone and Fentanyl to make a greater profit instead of using pure Oxycodone. Six hundred and sixty six thousand six hundred sixty six one-and-a-half milligram pills can be manufactured from one kilogram of Fentanyl. In fact, these pills are often manufactured locally by drug dealers, using their own mixtures and pill presses. Since it is so commonly present on the market, even smaller scale drugs, like cannabis, now have a much higher risk of being contaminated by Fentanyl than 10 years ago. Every time someone makes the choice to ingest any form of il- legal drug, that person is put at risk of ingesting Fentanyl.