The legal drug that killed Prince was 50 times stronger than heroin - and overdose deaths are creating an 'unprecedented' epidemic

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Associated Press

Prince.

Fentanyl, the drug that killed Prince, is an opioid painkiller that's 50 times stronger than pure heroin.

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Although the deadly drug is legal with a doctor's prescription, it's also being made illegally in underground labs and traded across the US.

A new CDC report, released August 25, found that from 2013-2014:

  • Incidents of law enforcement officers finding drugs containing fentanyl jumped 426%.
  • Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl rose by 79%.

"In contrast to the 2005-2007 fentanyl overdose outbreak, when deaths were confined to several states, the current epidemic is unprecedented in scope," the report states.

Here's what you need to know about it:

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