A member of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department spoke to the Rotary Club of Baker to sound the alarm and shed light on the heightened opioid crisis linked to fentanyl abuse. Maj. Anthony Ponton of the Street Crimes and Community division said the drug might be a newcomer in the community, but it is linked to hundreds of overdoses and deaths in the greater Baton Rouge area.
Pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic (manmade compound) opioid, approved for treating patients in severe pain like that experienced in advanced cancers. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
Maj. Ponton explained that because it produces an extreme high at a fraction of the cost, drug dealers are using it stretch expensive drugs like cocaine and some users don’t know that they are taking it. Without knowledge of dosing, these dealers put the user at an increased chance of accidental overdose and death. Rotarians were interested in the costs and abundance of the drug in the community and steps being taken to combat distribution. Due to increased overdose deaths, officials are distributing the antidote Naloxone in many locations in the community and with first responders like police and EMS.
