FORT WORTH (1080 KRLD) - The Fort Worth Police Department issues an urgent public safety warning on a sharp increase in overdoses of an illicit drug.
The city and surrounding areas have seen a substantial increase in distribution, possession and overdose of fentanyl, including an alarming number of overdose deaths.
Fort Worth Police say even small amounts of fentanyl can be fatal.
"Our number of responses for patients who accidentally overdose -- and as a result of that overdose, we had to administer a special drug called Narcan -- has increased over 53% over the last 12 months," says Matt Zavadsky, a spokesman for MedStar.
In fact, according to MedStar statistics, the number of responses in January in which paramedics had to treat overdoses with Narcan tripled compared to January of 2020.
"We have not seen this level of increase in Narcan usage and hospital overdoses in my memory," says Zavadsky, "and I've been here for 12 years."
Fort Worth Police say the most common trend involves small round blue pills containing fentalyl that are stamped M30 "Oxycodone clone" that look like they were pharmaceutically manufactured.
Doctors are not prescribing legitimate 30mg oxycodone polls in large quantities or for long durations.
Police say in many overdose cases, the users stated that they were unaware that the pills contained fentanyl.
Zavadsky says it's more important than ever always to obtain powerful prescription medications only from reputable doctors.
"If you're not getting your medication from a prescription from your doctor, or if you're not getting it filled by a reputable pharmaceutical location, those are things that you can do to help minimize accidental overdoses," says Zavadsky.