05 July 2023 , 21:02
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Robert De Niro 's grandson Leandro died at the age of 19 at the weekend and his distraught mum has claimed his death was due to him taking pills laced with fentanyl.
While the official report hasn't been announced, Drena De Niro took to Instagram to share the horrendous news.
After a follower asked her about her son's death on the social media channel, she wrote: "Someone sold him fentanyl laced pills that they knew were laced yet still sold them to him. So for all these people still f***ing around selling and buying this s***, my son is gone forever."
New York's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has yet to disclose an official cause of death, but it's thought they could be investigating who, if anyone, provided the drugs.
Last month, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters how fentanyl is "laced in probably 98% of the drugs” in the city.
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“Fentanyl is in everything now, everything,” he said. “Now people have low tolerance that’s why they’re overdosing so much.”
Robert De Niro with grandson Leandro De Niro Rodriguez (left) and daughter Drena De Niro (Instagram)But what is fentanyl and why is it so dangerous?
Fentanyl is a licensed medicine originally introduced as a method of pain management, but has, like other opioids, become subject to misuse.
It is usually prescribed as a painkiller, sometimes in the form of a patch, nasal spray or lozenge.
Like morphine and other opioid drugs, fentanyl works by binding to the body's opioid receptors - found in areas of the brain that control pain and emotion - and drive up dopamine levels in the area, producing a state of euphoria and relaxation.
It's said that fentanyl can be up to 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. However, some strands are hugely more potent.
A variant known as carfentanyl - used to anaesthetise large animals such as elephants - can be up to 10,000 times more toxic than morphine.
Although fentanyl is often abused as a substance by itself, the synthetic opioid is also being mixed with or substituted for heroin.
EX7TW7 Fentanyl Citrate vials (Alamy)
Leandro's mum has posted tributes online (Instagram/drenadeniro)Because the drug and its analogues are more potent than heroin, drug users face a high risk of accidental overdose as very small amounts can cause severe clinical effects or death.
Typical symptoms of a fentanyl overdose include slow and difficult breathing, nausea and vomiting, dizziness and increased blood pressure.
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The use of fentanyl has surged across the United States in recent years and became more prevalent in the UK's illegal drug market around 2016, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).