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A drug user prepares to inject heroin.

(New York Times)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Fentanyl, a highly potent painkiller often mixed with heroin, helped fuel a big increase in drug overdose deaths in Onondaga County in 2016.

There were 61 heroin-related deaths last year, up from 44 in 2015, according to the Onondaga County Medical Examiner's office. That represents a 39 percent increase.

Of the 61 deaths, 39 were people who overdosed on heroin mixed with fentanyl. Last year 2 1/2 times more people died from fentanyl-laced heroin than in 2015.

The county data is preliminary, which means the overdose death numbers for 2016 may increase as the medical examiner's office completes pending cases.

The county also saw a big increase last year in people who overdosed on prescription opioid drugs like oxycodone. There were 78 prescription opioid deaths in 2016, up from 52 in 2015, a 50 percent increase.

Fentanyl is a painkiller commonly used in hospital operating rooms. An illicit version of the drug made in Mexico and China is being mixed with heroin by drug dealers nationwide. It can be up to 100 percent more potent than heroin.

Dr. Brian Johnson, an addiction psychiatrist at Upstate University Hospital, said he frequently encounters drug users who did not realize the heroin they were taking was laced with fentanyl. "When you are buying drugs, dealers are not going to tell you what it is," he said.

Prescription opioid deaths include people who bought the painkillers on the street as well as individuals prescribed the drugs by their doctors, he said.

Many people taking prescription opioids for chronic pain find that their pain actually gets worse the more pills they take, he said. To ease their pain they take even more "and they never wake up," Johnson said.

To help address the problem, Upstate is working to develop a uniform approach to opioid prescribing among all its departments.

"We're frantic about this and we're gong to make sure things happen that will change it," he said.

What's happening in Onondaga County is part of an unprecedented national opioid epidemic.

Since 1999 the national rate of opioid overdose deaths has nearly quadrupled. On an average day in the U.S., 78 people die from an opioid overdose and 580 people start using heroin.

Over the past year, addiction treatment providers and programs in Central New York have been working to expand their services to accommodate a growing number of addicts.

But Johnson said there still are not enough services in the community to meet demand.

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