Some pills that were analyzed contained fentanyl, lidocaine and U-47700 – a synthetic drug that is eight times more powerful than morphine.
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An autopsy report released in June by the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office said Prince died from an accidental, self-administered overdose of fentanyl.
The official also told The Associated Press a separate aspirin bottle was found with 60 more counterfeit fentanyl pills. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the singer did not have a prescription for fentanyl at the time of his death. According to the Tribune source, Prince didn’t have a prescription for fentanyl. But according to an anonymous investigator, at least one of those pills contained fentanyl. In fact, the pill contained fentanyl. “Law enforcement nationwide report higher fentanyl availability, seizures, and known overdose deaths than at any other time since the drug’s creation in 1959”.
In an interview with Us Weekly, Prince’s longtime musical collaborator Sky Dangcil revealed that the 57-year-old began taking painkillers after suffering from a hip injury.
Exactly how Prince obtained the drugs is still unknown.
NIDA says on its Web site that the DEA reports drug traffickers are flooding the US drug market with counterfeit prescription drugs containing fentanyl.
Numerous pills seized from Prince’s home were found to have other drugs in them, the official also revealed.
“And also getting people addicted to opioids who might be drawn to heroin, which fentanyl is most often mixed, need to get the help they need to reverse their addiction”.
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“The counterfeit pills often closely resemble the authentic medications they were created to mimic, and the presence of fentanyl is only detected upon laboratory analysis”, a DEA report warned last month. It is normally prescribed to cancer patients in extreme pain or to someone who is dying or as given as a part of anaesthesia during surgery.
