High-achieving young professionals in New York City have long been attracted to using cocaine, but now the drug, brought to their homes by a DoorDash-type delivery service, is killing them. The Wall Street Journal looks at three of these young professionals—a lawyer, a Wall Street trader, and a social worker—who all died on the same day from an overdose after using cocaine laced with fentanyl, a powerful legal opioid prescribed for cancer patients and others with severe pain. More and more, traffickers mix it into drugs sold throughout the illicit market. The drug, up to 50 times more potent than heroin, is showing up in heroin and cocaine and pills stamped out to look like oxycodone or Adderall and other prescription medications, but which contain a lethal dose that is driving the surge in overdose fatalities nationwide. . Dealers cut it into cocaine to be more potent and addictive and to draw new users, who don’t suspect their stash is contaminated, or know that a tiny amount of fentanyl can kill unseasoned users. The professionals depicted in the article are just starting what would likely have been successful careers, but their casual cocaine use ends in tragedy. The drug costs around $200 and is delivered by couriers who service customers across Manhattan, according to phone texts. Of the nearly 1,000 cocaine-related deaths in New York in 2020, some 80 percent involved fentanyl, while the delivery service appears to operate relatively unhindered. While education and prevention campaigns are important to warn about the dangers of fentanyl-contaminated drugs, it’s time for law enforcement to crack down on such operations.
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Rosenthal Center for AddictIon Studies