Over the weekend, nine people in Minneapolis-Saint Paul suburbs overdosed on opioids, resulting in two fatalities, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
In Bloomington, Minn., three people were treated after experiencing suspected opioid overdoses at Mall of America. According to MPR, Deputy Police Chief Mike Hartley said investigators "determined that all three of these people had been together ingesting narcotics prior to their medical emergencies."
On Saturday, five men and one woman overdosed in a 12-hour span in Anoka County. Law enforcement officials believe this batch of overdoses was linked to heroin acquired from the same source.
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, 216 people died across the state in 2015 after overdosing on painkillers and another 114 died after overdosing on illegal opioids like heroin.
The Drug Enforcement Agency believes hundreds of thousands of counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than morphine, have infiltrated the U.S. drug market. Heroin cut with fentanyl has been linked to a string of overdose deaths in the U.S.
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