Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc (ELTP)

[BuddyGuise]

351 people overdosed fatally on opiates last year in New Hampshire, according to data provided to Fusion by the state’s medical examiner. Twenty-eight of those victims overdosed on heroin alone; fentanyl was a factor in 253 of the deaths.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. It’s so potent that an amount the size of three grains of sugar is lethal to an adult. First synthesized in the 1960s by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, fentanyl was initially used as a general anesthetic during surgery. Its only acceptable, “on-label” use is for reduction of severe pain in cancer-sufferers.

Today, the drug has two main sources: the prescription drug industry, and Mexican drug cartels.

Both men described how they would squeeze the gel out of a prescription fentanyl patch and mix it into their dope.

“You can make your heroin seem so much more explosive,” said David Harak, 27.

Harak said it was easy to find pharmaceutical fentanyl. He would buy it off a neighbor who was prescribed the drug, use a quarter of it himself, and then mix the rest into the heroin he was selling.

“I would microwave the fentanyl patch to get it soft. I'll suck it right up in my needle and put it right in my arm with just a little water added,” Harak said. “The fentanyl is the purest form. It's a pharmaceutical.”

http://interactive.fusion.net/death-by-fentanyl/intro.html