She cites numerous accounts of college students using cocaine to stay awake while studying for exams, or while attending campus parties, and then falling into a deep sleep after the initial cocaine rush. Some don't wake up. Others get revived by the opioid overdose antidote naloxone.

Massachusetts state police recorded a nearly three-fold increase in seizures of cocaine laced with fentanyl over the past year. And the Drug Enforcement Administration lists Massachusetts among the top three states in the US for seizures of cocaine/fentanyl combinations. The DEA says the mixture is popularly used for "speedballing." The original recipe used heroin mixed with cocaine in order to minimize the negative effects of the "come-down" after the rush of cocaine. Cocaine mixed with heroin is very unpredictable and dangerous. When it is mixed with fentanyl—five times the potency of heroin—it is even more dangerous.