There is no shortage of deadly drugs being introduced on the streets or of deadly drug combinations.  The latest one to raise some eyebrows isn't necessarily new to the United States, but it hasn't really been seen much in Washington State.  That is until last week.

Police in East Wenatchee arrested a man who had fentanyl, methamphetamine, and something police described as 'gray death'.  The man had 800 fentanyl pills and 50 grams of meth, but the alarm bells were ringing at the sight of 2 ounces of the mysterious drug.

Get our free mobile app

What Exactly Is 'Gray Death'?

As I mentioned earlier, this isn't new in the U.S. as the first mentions of the deadly cocktail go back to 2017.  It is incredibly dangerous, even in a very small dose.  Gray Death is a combination of heroin and synthetic opioids.  It's not one specific opioid, but one of a number that could be in the mix.  The following are the synthetic opioids that have been discovered as part of this deadly mix.

U-47700

The Upjohn Company created U-47700 (also known as Pink) in the 1970s, but it never received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.  The drug is roughly 7.5 times stronger than morphine.  It can cause respiratory depression, cyanosis, as well as an elevated heart rate.  It was classified as a Schedule I drug in 2016.  It can be purchased online as a 'research chemical'.

Fentanyl

This is arguably the most dangerous drug on the street today,  it was originally approved for pain relief for advanced cancer patients and is 50-100 times stronger than morphine.  The overwhelming majority of issues with fentanyl is not from prescriptions but from illegally made and obtained forms of the opioid.

Carfentanil

This is the deadliest drug of the three synthetic opioids that can be mixed with heroin to create gray death.  Carfentanil is not approved for human use.  It is 10,000 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl.  It is used to tranquilize large mammals and only 2 milligrams is enough to knock out an average size elephant.

The website drugabuse.com describes gray death like this:

Gray death has the potential to be the deadliest drug on the street today. Because a dose that isn’t even visible to the eye can kill you (depending on what’s in the batch), someone trying to take the amount of heroin they are used to taking can die in minutes.

As if there wasn't enough to worry about already.