San Francisco police have arrested four people and seized more than 20,000 pills, including suspected counterfeit medications, in an investigation that began with the April overdose death of a 16-year-old boy, the city's first known fatal case involving the synthetic opioid cychlorphine. The San Francisco Police Department said Monday that officers served search warrants at three San Francisco homes on Sept. 8 and 9 after a months-long investigation that included multiple controlled drug buys.
The teen was identified as Dante Paul Lacourte, a Lower Nob Hill resident whose mother found him unresponsive at home on April 7, according to New York Times reporting republished by the San Francisco Examiner. His death raises a hard question for families: how a pill that looks like an ordinary prescription can carry an opioid that fentanyl test strips cannot detect.
