A new mixing trend has been proved to be a dangerous opioid combination, is known as gray death. This new combo can change the statistics of U.S. addictions epidemic. United States officials are already issuing warnings for the dangerous opioid combo.
According to Chicago Tribune, investigators who have nicknamed the blend as gray death have also recognized it or recorded overdoses faulted for it in Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio. The drug looks like solid blend, a concrete mix and changes in consistency from a hard, stout material to a fine powder.
Gray death substance is a mixture of several opioids which are responsible for fatal overdoses in the country such as heroin, fentanyl, and carfentanil. This substance is used often for tranquilizing large animals such as elephants. Gray death is a synthetic opioid named as U-47700.
The pharmacist reported that the reason for gray death being a deadly drug is that people do not know the ingredients present in the drug and its concentrations. As the potent drugs can easily be absorbed through the skin, touching this opioid mixture can be more dangerous. Last year only, U-47700 was included in the category of most dangerous drugs by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The reason for putting gray death in the dangerous drugs list is that last year there were many fatalities reported, with the most number of cases in New York and North Carolina. Reports also say that this substance was a high potency than heroin. Users take this drug by injecting, swallowing or snorting it.
The gray death mixing has a high and deadly risk to the users, and therefore officials are issuing a warning against the deadly drug. These destructive mixes are turning into a sign of the heroin and opioid epidemic, which the administration says brought about 33,000 deadly overdoses broadly in 2015. In Ohio, 3,050 individuals died of drug overdoses a year ago as per the reports. Most of them were a result of opioid combination with heroin it.