The synthetic opiate fentanyl has been a primary killer in the opioid epidemic, a mega-potent powder sold not only straight but mixed into other street drugs like heroin and cocaine, and pressed into pills disguised as Ecstasy or pain meds.

Now, an Ohio lawmaker has suggested the state use seized fentanyl as a lethal-injection drug for capital crimes.

It is an idea that got a cool response from some close to the opioid epidemic on Wednesday.

"It has killed enough already," said Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan, a member of the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition and national spokesperson on the opioid crisis.

"I want the death from fentanyl to stop, not to contribute to its cycle of death."

Gov. Mike DeWine has stalled the state's executions while Ohio's prison system seeks an alternative way to execute Death Row inmates. A federal magistrate compared the effects of one of the drugs used, midazolam, to waterboarding.

Synan pointed out that fentanyl that's seized on the streets is most often made imprecisely, in what's known as "bucket factories," or clandestine locations overseas and can have any range of strengths. He added that there are countless of fentanyl analogues, made by altering one of its chemical bonds. And with all those analogues come different strengths, or potency.

The U.S Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration's 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment reports on those inconsistencies. A DEA Fentanyl Signature Profiling Program analysis of seized fentanyl showed that "fentanyl available in the United States can range from 0.1 percent to 97.8 percent pure, depending on the source of the fentanyl."

Analysts at the Hamilton County Crime Lab have identified several analogues. Pharmaceutical fentanyl is different, and it's not the main killer on the streets. It is a pain killer that can be administered through a patch.

So just getting the street fentanyl to an accurate potency would be an unwieldy task, Synan said.

An opioid researcher and addiction specialist, Dr. Marc Fishman, who is an assistant professor in the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins University, was appalled at the notion of using the drug as some kind of ultimate punishment.

"A physician ought not have an opinion on improved ways of poisoning people," he said.

"No physician should in any way have anything to do with selecting, verifying, prescribing, certifying the lethality of any illegally manufactured, seized products of criminal activity ... or any substance to be used" to put someone to death, Fishman said. "No deal."

Fishman, who is against the death penalty on moral grounds, recognized that legislators have a different role. "(A lawmaker) can use any poison he wants as an agent of the state. He can inject them with rodent poison," Fishman said. "I can't get in the way of the state."

"What about seized bullets? Should we be using those for a firing squad? No. What? No deal."

Rep. Scott Wiggam, R-Wooster, is the lawmaker who's working on legislation to allow Ohio prison officials to obtain fentanyl from drug busts.His proposal comes as pharmaceutical companies cut off access to execution drugs.

"This is a much less violent way than the electric chair and the latest lethal injection (Dennis McGuire's 2014 death) that took 26 minutes," Wiggam told The Enquirer. "This is a much more humane way."

Wiggam sent out an email requesting support for the proposal from fellow lawmakers, the Columbus Dispatch first reported.

Amy Parker of West Chester, who is an Ohio peer support specialist, sighed when she heard of the proposal. She has been in recovery from opioid use disorder for seven years.

"Personally, if I was going to know when I was dying ... I would definitely choose fentanyl. Because I'd know that I'm going to die feeling comfortable, high," she said. "It's the best feeling that I'd ever had."

She added, "I don't necessarily disagree with the death penalty, but I do know that, if someone was being put to death for murdering a group of kids, do you think that that person's parents would want them to die comfortably, in euphoria?"

Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco said it is possible to use the drug this way, because fentanyl can be tested for strength. "Is it likely to happen? I think it's highly unlikely." But, she reminded, it is also made in the United States for pharmaceutical use and could be purchased that way.

Synan worries that, as a society, we should be concerned about the mixed message we are sending. Fentanyl, he reminded, has caused enormous pain for families of those addicted.

"That fentanyl seized off the street may be why a family member will forever grieve the loss of a child," Synan said.

Fentanyl started creeping into Hamilton County around 2013, usually tainting heroin and sold to unwitting users. From 2013 to 2017, deaths from fentanyl skyrocketed by 1,000%.

The drug has been blamed on surges of overdoses this summer, including one in which 23 people overdosed in Hamilton County in 24 hours.

Synan noted that Cincinnati is coming up on a grim anniversary: a week when fentanyl and other synthetic opiates, including the elephant anesthetic Carfentanil, caused 174 overdoses in Hamilton County, including three deaths. That happened Aug. 19-27, 2016.

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"It could be argued that week changed our country," said Synan, noting that Ohio was among the first states with such an onslaught of overdoses from synthetic opiates. "We have never been the same."