Understanding the Difference Between Prescription Fentanyl and Illicit Fentanyl

By Roger Chriss, PNN Columnist

The opioid overdose crisis is now being driven by fentanyl. But misunderstandings over what fentanyl is, where it comes from, how it is used and why have become so pervasive that they plague discourse and debate about the crisis. News reports about “fentanyl overdose deaths” appear almost daily.

October saw a particularly tragic death. As reported by the Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona, a 14-year-old high school student died of an overdose after taking what investigators suspect was a counterfeit pill “laced with the potent narcotic painkiller fentanyl.”

The tragedy of this death cannot be overstated. Nor can thousands of other overdose fatalities caused by fentanyl. But the nature of the drug needs to be better understood if we are to prevent such deaths moving forward.

Fentanyl is not one drug. It is better thought of as a family of synthetic opioids that are structurally similar, and includes sufentanil and remifentanil. These are pharmaceutical fentanyls, used clinically as anesthetics and essential for medical procedures such as open heart surgery.

Collectively, these drugs are part of a super-family known as fentanyl analogues. There are dozens of such drugs. Some are compounds developed by pharmaceutical companies for legitimate medical use, and others are manufactured illegally for use as street drugs. These forms of fentanyl are commonly referred to as “illicitly manufactured fentanyl” by government agencies like the CDC. The DEA has classified “fentanyl-related substances” as Schedule I controlled substances, meaning they are illegal to manufacture, distribute or possess.

To make this even more complicated, the fentanyl drug carfentanil is used legally in the U.S. as a tranquilizer for elephants and other large animals. The DEA authorizes production of a minute quantity of carfentanil for veterinarians every year. But illicit carfentanil from overseas occasionally shows up on the street and causes fatal overdoses.

Further muddying matters is the new fentanyl-like street drug isotonitazene, which is known colloquially as “iso.” It is “fentanyl-like” in its risks and harms, but is not technically a fentanyl analogue. “Iso” is instead related to etonitazene. Neither of these drugs has any recognized medical use in humans.

Risks Are Very Different

In other words, there is a vast gulf between pharmaceutical fentanyl and illicitly manufactured fentanyl. The former is a tightly controlled Schedule II prescription medication, approved for use in hospitals and to treat breakthrough cancer pain. The latter is an illegal substance cooked up in illicit labs that is often added to heroin or used to make counterfeit pills, which are then sold on the street or online.

This distinction is critical for understanding the opioid overdose crisis. The risks of a prescription opioid like fentanyl when given for medical use to a legitimate patient are very different from the risks of an illicit opioid being used non-medically by a random street buyer. Importantly, the risks for medical use can be addressed and managed. The risks of illicit use are much harder to deal with and often prove fatal.

The distinction also leads to confusion. The abundance of fentanyl on the street is rarely a result of diversion, and is unrelated to the supply of pharmaceutical fentanyl. These are different drugs, much as the cocaine nasal spray recently approved by the FDA as a local anesthetic is completely separate from the cocaine bought on the street. Pain experts are now pushing for a new classification for illicit fentanyl analogues, in the hope of clarifying this difference.

But fentanyl has so saturated the street drug market that more than a name change will be needed. As Ben Westhoff explains in the book “Fentanyl, Inc.”, preventing future opioid deaths will require “sweeping new public-health initiatives, including treatment programs and campaigns to educate everyone, from users and medical providers to teachers and police, about the drugs’ dangers.”

Understanding the difference between pharmaceutical fentanyl and illicitly manufactured fentanyl is an essential step in the effort to reduce overdose deaths.

Roger Chriss lives with Ehlers Danlos syndrome and is a proud member of the Ehlers-Danlos Society. Roger is a technical consultant in Washington state, where he specializes in mathematics and research. 

A Pained Life: Who Benefits From the Opioid Crisis?

By Carol Levy, PNN Columnist

For the first time in almost 40 years, I have to fight to get my codeine prescription filled.

I understand intellectually what so many pain patients have said about the frustration, upset and upheaval they experience when a pharmacist refuses to fill their prescription or insurance refuses to pay for it. Or harder still, what they go through having their opioid medications cut down or stopped completely.

But I did not understand the emotional side of it until it happened to me.

The insurance company refused to pay for my codeine prescription. They had no problem filling it for the last many, many years but suddenly they need "authorization" from the doctor. How does that make sense? Writing the prescription was authorizing. Why do they need to add a second permission?

It is now over three weeks. The pharmacist tells me they have contacted the doctor's office three times: "You need to call them and find out why they haven't responded."

When I call the office, they tell me the pharmacy never sent over the forms they need.

So I call the pharmacy back. They recite a fax number for the doctor’s office. It is not the right number. I give them the number the doctor's office just gave me. “We'll try it again right now,” she says.

I keep my fingers crossed and hope I don't run out of pills before it is resolved — if it is resolved.

The pharmacy clerk and I talked the day the prescription was refused by the insurance company. I was venting my frustration over not being able to get the prescription filled, especially because it is the same prescription I have had for years, one that was always covered by my insurance.

To my surprise she says: "It is not just narcotics. Many insurance companies are refusing to cover or making unwarranted demands, requiring many more hoops to jump through. They have refused to cover certain creams and hormones, other prescriptions, non-narcotics that are routinely given and, until now, paid for by the insurance companies."

This is appalling. And makes no sense.  

But then I start thinking about it and was struck by a thought: Yes, there is an opioid crisis. And we’ve all heard the reasons they blamed patients for the “crisis.”  But I think there may be another factor at play: the profit margin.

After all, if we pay insurance premiums but they refuse to pay for our medication -- forcing some folks to pay cash rather than wait for all the rigamarole to be completed -- then the insurance company comes out way ahead. They get our monthly fees and work to make sure we get as little as possible in return. 

I hope I am merely being paranoid. But somehow, I doubt it.

Carol Jay Levy has lived with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic facial pain disorder, for over 30 years. She is the author of “A Pained Life, A Chronic Pain Journey.” 

Carol is the moderator of the Facebook support group “Women in Pain Awareness.” Her blog “The Pained Life” can be found here.

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.