In the United States, 70% of overdose deaths were caused by fentanyl in the past year. It is a medical opioid, 100 times more powerful than morphine, which has spread rapidly on the dark web. Until a few weeks ago, it was believed that the so-called zombie drug had not permeated the Italian drug market. Instead, after the substance has been detected in a spectrometer a drug checking in Perugia, the alarm was also raised in our country. The discovery was possible thanks to a heroin addict who, after consuming a dose, felt strange effects. So, she asked to analyze the substance in a laboratory: in addition to heroin, codeine and diazepam, 5% fentanyl was detected in the mix.
The dose
Lorenzo Camoletto, national representative of the risk and damage reduction group of the National Coordination of Reception Communities, reported to Republic: «Now we know that it has arrived. Our situation has nothing to do with the American one. There’s no point in being alarmed beyond a certain point, but there’s no point in pretending that it means nothing either. Let’s say that we are at a yellow alert level and above all that we are able to warn institutions and consumers of the real risk of taking this very dangerous substance.” The dose of heroin cut with fentanyl remains, at the moment, the only case verified in Italy. The prosecutor’s office in the Umbrian capital is investigating to understand whether this is the beginning of an invasion of fentanyl in Italian drug dealing areas, keeping in mind the seriousness of the American data: this drug has caused more than 100 thousand deaths in the USA.
In Perugia
For now, in the Perugia areas, there has been no increase in overdose patients. But to delve deeper into the matter, it would be necessary to increase those street proximity services: «Suffice it to say that the drug checking it is only available in four regions: Piedmont – the only one that has included it to all intents and purposes in the regional system, explained Camoletto -, Umbria and on a still experimental basis Lazio and Liguria. When the presence of new substances is revealed with traditional methods, from seizures by the police to monitoring waste water and examining urine or hair, it is already late. In this case it was a consumer, one of those who come into contact with our operators of the mobile units who move around the drug dealers or rave parties, who asked for our help in analyzing the drug that had given him the effects unwanted and unknown to him. And usually at least half of consumers, if the analyzes certify the presence of unknown substances, give up taking them.”
