Rash of deaths due to painkiller, overdose prompt US warning

US authorities are sounding the alarm after nearly 40 people in California either overdosed or died from street drugs laced with fentanyl, a powerful painkiller.

"The overdoses are occurring at an alarming rate and are the basis for this public safety alert," the US Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement Friday.

It said that since last week, 36 people had overdosed and nine had died in the region of Sacramento, California's capital, after ingesting pills laced with fentanyl.

The victims ranged in age from 18 to 59.

Fentanyl is an odorless substance considered to be 25 to 50 times more potent than heroin and 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. It is used to relieve severe pain during and after surgery and is often prescribed to cancer patients.

Officials believe that pills tainted with the drug are being sold on the street under the guise of being hydrocodone, a prescription pain medication.

Among the victims in Sacramento is a 28-year-old father of three who died after taking a tablet of what he believed was the narcotic Norco.

Law enforcement officials say an illicit version of fentanyl has been spreading to the western part of the country in recent years through Mexican drug networks, after first surfacing in Midwestern cities.

The fentanyl scare in California comes as the United States grapples with an epidemic of heroin and prescription drug abuse.

President Barack Obama addressed the issue at a summit on drug abuse earlier this week, saying that more people were dying from opioid overdose in the United States than traffic accidents. —Agence France-Presse