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Fentanyl-Laced Cocaine Appears in Peoria

The Peoria Police Department is issuing a ‘buyer beware notice’ to crack cocaine users. A new form of fentanyl laced in rocks of crack is responsible for the deaths of two people Tuesday, contributed to the death for a third, and has one man in critical condition.

Peoria Police Captain Mike Mushinski says, “We are saying we’ve never seen anything like this in cocaine and you would not expect for cocaine to have fentanyl in it.”

The new form of fentanyl being used in the cocaine is called Methoxyacetyl. But Captain Mushinski says cocaine users typically do not carry narcan which makes this situation more lethal. 

“You could do large quantities of cocaine and narcan is never going to help you," he said. "Now that this is fentanyl that is either being mixed in or it’s all fentanyl, they need to be aware of the fact that they need to have narcan- or a better option would be not to do the cocaine.” 

A father and son died just minutes after smoking it Tuesday. A recreational powder cocaine user also died Tuesday with trace evidence of the fentanyl in that case. 

Peoria Police Chief Jerry Mitchell says the Illinois State Police Crime Lab in Morton did the chemical analysis on the substance and was willing to push it to the front of the caseload because of the extraordinary nature of this situation. State drug enforcement agents were also en route to Peoria late Thursday to learn about the substance.