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Cocaine-fentanyl mix in overdoses puzzles law enforcement

PENN HILLS, Pa. — Just due to sheer numbers, much of the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office's work revolves around overdose deaths.

Now they and local police are starting to see a new trend in overdose victims, something even the Drug Enforcement Agency is still trying to understand.

Penn Hills police are used to heroin overdoses by now, but the chief said what they saw in March was a different kind of overdose.

“It is putting public safety, EMS, fire, police all in danger with this type of activity,” said Chief Howard Burton.

Investigators found a 37-year-old woman who fatally overdosed on cocaine and fentanyl, a first in the borough.

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In the last two weeks, six reports from the medical examiner's office showed a lethal mix of the drugs in victims’ toxicology reports.

“The heroin is very dangerous; people are dying from this, so we have to another drug of choice, which is possibly cocaine,” Burton said. “With the cocaine being laced with fentanyl, we're going right back to the same problem.”

It's a problem the DEA recently examined in a declassified study obtained by 11 Investigates. Agents found several different possibilities for drugs being mixed, ultimately concluding that “intelligence gaps exist regarding the mixing of cocaine and fentanyl in Pennsylvania.”

"The number of overdoses that have both of them together have increased, but the increase is partially due to the fact that the fentanyl has increased so much," said Lynn Mirigian, project director for the University of Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Opioid Overdose Reduction Technical Assistance Center.

There's been a marked increase in cocaine and fentanyl deaths, but she said it's too early to call the combo a trend.

“I think that definitely merits looking deeper into that as time goes on,” she said.

The DEA says, at this point, it's unclear if street dealers are selling a cocaine-fentanyl mix or if users are ingesting the two drugs separately.