Team of scientific sleuths help sound the alarm on Michigan’s killer drugs

The year was 2016. Eight years later, a group of scientists and laboratory technicians working in a laboratory on the fourth floor of the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner’s Office can examine blood samples to quickly identify not only traditional drugs such as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, but also deadly substances. Substances added to increase profits as they travel from supplier to street vendor.

Rapid Toxicology of Overdose Deaths or STORMThe project is a rapid-response scientific team that can help authorities quickly isolate the criminal and provide real-time information on what is happening in the street drug supply.

There Is No Better Business Bureau

By the time the final packaged product on the street reaches its buyers, users have no idea what has been added or “cut” into the drug: fentanyl, xylazine, krokodil, carfentanil – all potentially lethal.

co-director of Kalamazoo’s trauma and emergency center, Dr. “You’re not going to go to the Better Business Bureau to research your seller and know if you’re going to get something that’s clean or not,” Mark Kerschner said. Bronson Methodist Hospital.

Police Captain Mark Ferguson stood up At the police crime lab last month. He held up three clear plastic evidence bags containing angular rocks in three shades of white and brown: a grayish fentanyl, heroin with fentanyl, and bright white fentanyl..