QUINCY, Fla. — Nine people died over the holiday weekend from likely drug overdoses in a rural Florida Panhandle county, officials said.
After two women were found dead of an apparent overdose Friday, the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office put out an alert seeking the public’s help to warn others of the possibly polluted drug supply, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
Gadsden County is located northwest of Tallahassee.
Sheriff Morris A. Young said investigators believe the deaths are related to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid used as a pain medication.
County officials said they've confirmed seven of the deaths, while two others remain under investigation.
Of those who died, the youngest was a 34-year-old man and the oldest was a 60-year-old woman, according to the newspaper. The sheriff said the county is working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
No arrests were immediately announced.
Fentanyl in recent years has been a significant drug contributing to the nation's overdose crisis. It’s a synthetic opioid 80-100 times stronger than morphine. Oftentimes, Corporal Aaron Dahl with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said it's laced with another drug.
"I have no idea why, but we’ve seen an uptick of numbers of you think you’re getting one thing and you end up getting another poison," Dahl said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in May that increases the minimum mandatory sentences for trafficking in fentanyl from three years to seven years, with the penalty climbing to at least 20 years when dealing in greater amounts.
10 Tampa Bay's Andrew Krietz contributed to this story.
