Some of the pills recovered from the estate of legendary singer Prince have been found to contain counterfeit fentanyl.
An anonymous official told The Associated Press Sunday they found almost two dozen pills mislabeled as “Watson 385,” some of which contained fentanyl and lidocaine, The Boston Herald reported Monday.
The official also told The Associated Press a separate aspirin bottle was found with 60 more counterfeit fentanyl pills. Some of those pills were found to have lidocaine — a local numbing agent — as well as U-4770 — a synthetic drug eight times more powerful than morphine.
Authorities also recovered a prescription bottle under someone else’s name. It contained 10 pills of oxycodone.
The autopsy report showed the seven-time Grammy award winning musician had died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. Tests done prior to his passing did not show fentanyl in his system, which means he was presumably not taking the drug long-term before he died. The autopsy also revealed he had diazepam, lidocaine and hydrocodone acids in his system.
Authorities are not sure how Prince obtained the fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a painkilling opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine. It has also been suspected as the cause of a rash of heroin overdoses. According to WebMD, Watson 385 is supposed to be a mix of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, void of any fentanyl.
Prince was said to have a lot of these pills when his plane made an emergency landing in Illinois April 15, where he was administered Narcan to reverse the effects of opioid overdose.
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