Now that we know exactly what killed Prince, his toxicology reports being made public, the inquest into just what Fentanyl is has begun.

Well let’s be clear about one thing, it didn’t have a great reputation before and it certainly doesn’t now. We know America is in the midst of a war on addictions to opioid-based painkillers, but Fentanyl is the new enemy number one.

One of the major problems is that the drug is being made illicitly and sold on the streets, with more here from CNN in a piece titled ‘Fentanyl, the new heroin, but deadlier’:

The drug, fentanyl, has been around since the 1960s. Its potency works miracles, soothing extreme pain in cancer patients who are usually prescribed patches or lozenges.

But an illicit version of the drug is flooding into communities across America, and casual users are finding out that their fentanyl pills and powder are delivering a powerful high that is easy to overdose on. It can even kill.

Ohio reported 514 fentanyl-related deaths in 2014, up from 93 the year before. Maryland reported 185 fentanyl-related deaths, up from 58 in a year’s time. In Florida, the number of deaths jumped to 397 in 2014, from 185. New Hampshire had 151 reported deaths due to fentanyl alone in 2015, five times the number of deaths from heroin, according to the office of the state’s chief medical examiner…

llicit fentanyl is a bestseller on the streets and a prolific killer. It is so potent that when law enforcement goes in to seize it, officers have to wear level A hazmat suits, the highest protection level made, the same kind of suits health care workers use to avoid contamination by the deadly Ebola virus.

The DEA estimates that drug traffickers can buy a kilogram of fentanyl powder for $3,300 and sell it on the streets for more than 300 times that, generating nearly a million dollars.

Fentanyl is often trafficked through the cartels’ standard maze of routes through Mexico and into the U.S.