New Jersey's Attorney General says heroin that's mixed with fentanyl is becoming more pervasive in the state.
Attorney General Chris Porrino says fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and he's heard that some drug dealers will lace one bag in a hundred with a lethal dose.
"You might ask yourself, why would a drug dealer intentionally kill one of his or her customers? And the answer is marketing. Because the word on the street then travels that that particular dealer has the most potent heroin out there and that's what's selling."
Porrino says fentanyl is so dangerous that authorities are examining their protocols on how to handle the narcotics they seize.
He says a state police laboratory physician in protective clothing was testing a substance believed to be fentanyl.
"The substance, by accident, comes into contact with her skin. Overdose. She didn't inject it, she didn't snort it, she didn't put it in her mouth. Contact with her skin. Overdose. Naloxone was utilized and she was saved."
Porrino also described another incident.
“A drug sniffing dog in an apartment already cleaned out, floors mopped and swept, furniture removed. It was used as a drug mill where fentanyl was being laced in with heroin. We were checking to see where the was any fentanyl or other narcotics behind the walls. That dog in that clean apartment overdosed.”
The dog was also revived with Naloxone.
Porrino says most of the fentanyl is manufactured in Mexico and China and is coming into this country illegally.