Fentanyl is a word that many Americans are all too aware of these days but for all the wrong reasons.
    Once upon a time, the highly potent opioid was primarily used as a pharmaceutical to treat patients with severe pain, usually after surgery. Now made and used illegally, the synthetic drug is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine and is involved in more deaths of Americans aged 50 or younger than any other cause, including heart disease, cancer and all other accidents.
    Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, are now the most common drugs involved in drug overdose deaths in the U.S., according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
    The illegally used fentanyl most often involved with recent overdoses is made in labs. It then hits the streets and is sold in several forms: as a powder, dropped onto blotter paper, put in eye droppers and nasal sprays or made into pills that look like other prescription opioids, according to NIDA.
    Often unbeknownst to unsuspecting users, drug dealers are mixing fentanyl with other drugs, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA (known as ecstasy or molly). This is because fentanyl is a cheap but dangerous additive that takes very little to produce a high. Users may not be accustomed to such a strong opioid or their bodies are not used to such high levels and, as a result, are more likely to overdose.