Fears around overdose are causing fentanyl users in San Francisco to switch from injecting the drug to smoking it Fentanyl residues left behind in pipes and other smoking equipment might be dangerous, however, especially to users new to the drug Outreach is needed to inform users of this new hazard THURSDAY, May 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- San Francisco researchers report that smoking has now replaced injections as the most common way of ingesting illicit fentanyl. That switch has created a potentially deadly new danger, however, as fentanyl residues slowly build up in shared equipment used to smoke the drug. Study author Dr.
David Ciccarone likened it to a prior scourge, also linked to illicit drug use. "The risk of overdose when sharing smoking devices with fentanyl resin could be seen as analogous to the risk of shared injection paraphernalia and HIV transmission,” said Ciccarone, a professor of addiction medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). His team published its findings May 22 in the journal PLOS ONE .
Fentanyl is estimated to be 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50% more powerful than heroin, and it's often mixed in -- sometimes unbeknownst to the user -- with common street drugs. Fentanyl can also be injected, snorted or sniffed, smoked, taken as a pill or placed on paper. San Francisco's experience with fentanyl has been grim, with related deaths in the city reaching 653 during 2023, the UCSF researchers noted.
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