NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (WIVB) — During a search on Hyde Park Boulevard, authorities in Niagara Falls say they found enough drugs to kill thousands of people.
The search took place on Thursday. According to police, narcotics detectives at the scene found the following:
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- 47 grams of fentanyl
- 91 grams of cocaine
- 24 Suboxone strips
- an undisclosed number of pills
- a large amount of cash
- a handgun stolen from out of state
As a result, 25-year-old Kemonna Bradley-Woods was charged with second, third and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Additional charges will be filed, pending lab results, the City of Niagara Falls says.
Health officials and law enforcement agencies across the country are deeply concerned about the rise in fatalities connected to fentanyl. In a recent news conference on opioid overdose deaths in Erie County, County Executive Mark Poloncarz shared a startling statistic on this — more than 50 percent of the 2022 opioid overdose deaths in Erie County were generally a mixture of cocaine and fentanyl.
In the same conference, Poloncarz indicated that longtime cocaine users are dying because their drugs now contain fentanyl.
The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) says fentanyl is “similar to morphine but about 100 times more potent.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the synthetic opioid can be up to 50 times as strong as heroin.
Just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can prove to be lethal, depending on one’s size, past usage and tolerance, the DEA says.
So, let’s do the math, there are 1,000 milligrams in a single gram. 47 grams of fentanyl was found during the search, police said. That’s enough to potentially kill more than 23,000 people, or about half the population of Niagara Falls.
For reference, here are some similarly sized population centers in Western New York, utilizing U.S. Census Bureau data from 2021:
- Orchard Park: 29,735
- Jamestown: 28,393
- Lockport: 20,738
- Batavia: 15,482
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Evan Anstey is an Associated Press Award, JANY Award and Emmy-nominated digital producer who has been part of the News 4 team since 2015. See more of his work here and follow him on Twitter.
