Dec 21, 2024 02:25 AM
https://theconversation.com/carfentanil-...ple-245492
INTRO: Drug overdose deaths in the US have finally begun to abate. Between June 2023 and June 2024, they fell by 14%. However, deaths from a drug used to sedate large animals, called carfentanil, rose by at least 720% between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024.
The total number of deaths from carfentanil in the US is still tiny compared with deaths from the related drug fentanyl, but still, the trend is concerning.
Carfentanil was first synthesised in 1974 at Janssen Pharmaceuticals and sold under the brand name Wildnil. It is typically used to dart large animals such as deer, moose, elk, rhinoceros and elephants. A dose of 10mg is enough to knock out or even kill a fully grown African elephant.
Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 to 100,000 times more potent than morphine. It is too powerful to use in human medicine as a painkiller.
Don’t let yourself be misled. Understand issues with help from experts
The first evidence of its use as an illicit drug was in 2016. A dose of as small as one microgram (one-thousandth of a milligram) can cause euphoria and relaxation, but also nausea, constipation, respiratory depression, brain damage and death... (MORE - details)
INTRO: Drug overdose deaths in the US have finally begun to abate. Between June 2023 and June 2024, they fell by 14%. However, deaths from a drug used to sedate large animals, called carfentanil, rose by at least 720% between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024.
The total number of deaths from carfentanil in the US is still tiny compared with deaths from the related drug fentanyl, but still, the trend is concerning.
Carfentanil was first synthesised in 1974 at Janssen Pharmaceuticals and sold under the brand name Wildnil. It is typically used to dart large animals such as deer, moose, elk, rhinoceros and elephants. A dose of 10mg is enough to knock out or even kill a fully grown African elephant.
Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 to 100,000 times more potent than morphine. It is too powerful to use in human medicine as a painkiller.
Don’t let yourself be misled. Understand issues with help from experts
The first evidence of its use as an illicit drug was in 2016. A dose of as small as one microgram (one-thousandth of a milligram) can cause euphoria and relaxation, but also nausea, constipation, respiratory depression, brain damage and death... (MORE - details)