A synthetic opioid is raising alarm bells in El Paso County. The coroner's office said the drug carfentanil was detected in a recent case and is the first known time the drug has appeared in the county without also detecting fentanyl.
According to the alert from the coroner's office, someone who died in August in Colorado Springs had a number of pills in their possession that authorities suspected was fentanyl. Further testing showed they contained carfentanil but no fentanyl.
El Paso County coroner Dr. Emily Russell-Kinsley said in an email that her office has been testing for carfentanil since 2019.
“The first time we detected carfentanil was in August of this year in another county. Also in August we detected it twice in El Paso County,” Russell-Kinsley said.
Carfentanil was originally developed as a large animal tranquilizer, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It’s 100 times stronger than fentanyl, and 10,000 times stronger than morphine. The coroner's office said carfentanil does not typically show up by itself on fentanyl test strips.
According to the coroner's office, someone who died in August in Colorado Springs had a number of pills in their possession that authorities suspected was fentanyl. Further testing showed they contained carfentanil but no fentanyl.
The coroner's office said it has not confirmed any carfentanil deaths in El Paso County.
Overdoses from the drug can be reversed with Narcan, but the coroner's office said it may take a higher dose.
Symptoms of a carfentanil overdose mirror overdoses of other opioids and could look like slowed or stopped breathing, snoring or gurgling sounds, pinpoint pupils, cold or clammy skin, drowsiness, disorientation, sedation, and unresponsiveness.
