Officials responding to a recent spike in opiate overdoses around the northeast Ohio city of Akron, suspected some users , trying to increase the potency of heroin and other drugs by mixing in a powerful anesthetic. That is used to sedate elephants and other large animals.

Authorities said that the drug carfentanil has been found in syringes used by some of the individuals who already died.

Akron Police Lt. Rick Edwards said that there have been 91 overdoses and eight deaths in the city from July 5 through early on Thursday.

Jerry Craig, the executive director of Summit County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services, informed that they don't know if the cases are linked but was a troubling development.

Edwards said, investigators were not sure where the drug, which isn't approved for human use, is coming from. It's listed as having a potency 100 times that of fentanyl, which has been blamed for a recent uptick in heroin-related deaths.

By Prakriti Neogi