Authorities in Hamilton County Ohio say overdose deaths in the area linked to fentanyl spiked by more than 1,000 percent over four years, rising from only 24 in 2013 to 324 in 2017. Officials with the county crime lab say more than 90 percent of drug samples tested so far this year contain some kind of synthetic opioids, reports Cincinnati.com.

Local police say the heroin crisis has morphed into, “a synthetic-opiate epidemic.”

“Its power is immediate and death can be immediate, unlike anything we have seen from any other drug,” Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan told Cincinnati.com. “Fentanyl and similar synthetic opiates have produced overdoses and deaths in not only unprecedented numbers but previously unimaginable.”

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