anybody not ready all right good afternoon I'm Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Hall Tyrian with me is representatives of the Clearwater and st. Petersburg police departments we're here today to inform the public about a deadly drug swap that is resulted in as many as 10 deaths in Pinellas County this year a drug that's known as n X which is alprazolam is used by physicians to treat anxiety and panic disorders it affects the brain and nerves to produce a calming effect it has legitimate medical use when prescribed by a doctor and obtained from a legitimate pharmacy xanax is also sold illegally on the street and there is a demand for it by illegal drug users it's not an expensive street drug by all accounts and probably sell somewhere between three and five dollars a pill the supply and demand for xanax on the street has stayed relatively consistent for the last few years fentanyl is another drug that is extremely potent and this is a synthetic opioid it's about 80 times more potent than morphine in about 50 times more potent than pure heroin it has a rapid onset when it is consumed but only lasts for a short period of time now fentanyl like xanax has legitimate medical uses and is primarily used for pain and is specifically used in cancer patients but because it's so potent it's usually administered through a time-release patch or some other form but it's not taken orally as a pill since January of this year we have three confirmed and six strongly suspected deaths caused by people taking what they thought was Street purchased xanax here in Pinellas County however these pills that were taken and swallowed or really a combination which is rare a combination xanax in fentanyl we had another cases past Saturday night in Dunedin where a young 25 year old woman died after taking a combination of fentanyl mixed with other drugs denying death cases that have occurred generally are in the area from Largo south here in Pinellas County Saturday night's case was the first one in north part of the county we've also had another nine cases this year where law enforcement has made undercover drug purchases of what was purported to be xanax and the lab analysis has confirmed that it was a mixture of xanax and fentanyl so what you see here and the charts are the nine cases that are either 100% confirmed or strongly suspected and just waiting final lab confirmation of actual people that have died from taking what they purchased on the street and thought was xanax for three to five dollars a pill but it was actually fentanyl and when they take it because it's so strong this killing them and again the nine that we have that are from undercover purchases and but for the drugs in these nine cases being sold to undercover law enforcement officers who of course turned the drugs in as evidence and the purchaser was not a true consumer of the drugs there could easily be nine more dead people in addition to the nine that we have confirmed in Pinellas County we're also seeing an uptick in fentanyl mixed with other drugs over the last two years including heroin in 2014 there were 14 cases of drugs that were mixed with fentanyl submitted to our lab and in 2015 there were 71 cases for the first two months of 2016 there have been 17 and if that pace continues there will be over a hundred and 2016 we've also seen a new opioid on the street that the lab has only referred to is you four seven seven zero zero and that's a number the lab has given it because it doesn't have any other name has been identified with it and there have been three people that have died from overdoses in Pinellas County in 2015 and 16 as a result of that new opioid that's on the street we know that some other parts of the country have seen deaths caused by fentanyl in xanax mixed in these pills particularly in Northern California but this recent presence here in Pinellas County is a great concern we are in the process of checking with other law enforcement agencies but for what we can tell right now that this is limited to Pinellas County within the state of Florida I've checked with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and they reported back to us that there are labs throughout the entire state of Florida aren't seen what we're seeing here in Pinellas County so we don't know whether the source of this xanax or fentanyl mixture is a local source whether it's being manufactured here in Pinellas County or in the Tampa Bay area or whether it's being manufactured elsewhere and imported into the area but it does seem to be something that is unique here in Pinellas County it's also somewhat puzzling why someone's creating the pill that contains an X and fentanyl because an X is an inexpensive drug it's not an opioid where fentanyl is a potent opioid zan excels as I told you from three to five dollars on the street so it's really illogical that someone is taking xanax relatively cheap non-opioid mixing it with an opioid like fentanyl pressing it into a pill and selling it what they were seeing out in California in specifically the San Francisco area last fall and there were several reported cases of this is that they actually on the fake Xanax pills they that were xanax and fentanyl they actually stamped xanax on the pill so somebody went to the extent to represent it as being this xanax when it was this fentanyl is an X mixture as you can see from the photographs we have here and these are what's been recovered here locally is that the fake xanax here if you will xanax mixed with the fentanyl doesn't have xanax on it's got a number that's stamped on the pill so our message to people in Pinellas County is that you shouldn't of course take any drugs without medical necessity and only upon a doctor's prescription but the reality is is that people do take these drugs and we are not going to stop drug abuse so people who are buying these drugs on the street is they need to think twice about it because what they are buying and swallowing today that they think is one thing is another and it may well kill them it's already killed nine people here in the last two months ingesting fentanyl is lethal you have no idea what you're taking so people need to immediately stop buying xanax on the street because their life literally depends on it there's no other way to put it and we know that we're not going to stop people from abusing drugs but the message to the community is is that you better stop buying this is an X on the street because nine people are dead nine more would have been except for they're probably going to jail because they sold it to law enforcement they're better off in jail and they are across the parking lot at the morgue but it's a big problem and it is continuing so we're gonna continue our investigation and try and figure out where it's coming from who might be manufacturing who might be putting it together and again why this seems to be right now here it seems to be limited to Pinellas County so you know with that we're happy to take any questions at you