YPD gives vice squad kit to test for fentanyl

YOUNGSTOWN

The police department’s vice squad has added a kit to test for the drug fentanyl because officers have been seeing more and more of it lately.

Lt. Gerard Slattery, who heads up the vice squad, said the kits will be used when officers encounter fentanyl while they are on the street or for any drugs that are taken into evidence. The vice squad also does tests on drugs that are seized by officers in the patrol and other divisions.

Fentanyl is an opiate-based painkiller that is more powerful than heroin and is highly addictive. Heroin addicts have been known to mix fentanyl with heroin. Slattery said he has been running into cases where some dealers sell fentanyl but try to pass it off as heroin,

He said officers are finding the powder fentanyl, not the patch that is prescribed to people for chronic pain,

Trumbull County has been grappling with the fentanyl problem and deaths from overdoses attributed to it for the past couple of years but Slattery said this is the first time he has seen the drug in Youngstown.

Read more about the situation in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.