A sixth person has died in Sacramento County as a result of ingesting pills made to look like a prescription painkiller, health officials confirmed Tuesday. 
 
 A total of 28 cases of people becoming sick from the street-bought drug have been reported, including the six people who have died, according to the Sacramento County Division of Public Health. 
 
 UPDATE (March 31): A seventh person has died due to ingesting the street-bought painkiller. Read more here. 
 
 “I've never seen a substance like this,” said Jon Daily, founder of Recovery Happens and an addiction specialist with more than 20 years experience. “Fentanyl is eight times stronger than heroin or 800 percent stronger than heroin, it's a very potent substance.” 
 
 Initial reports that came in Thursday said people overdosed on street Norco pills -- a prescription painkiller made of hydrocodone and acetaminophen -- laced with fentanyl, which is estimated to be 80 times as potent as morphine and hundreds of times more potent than heroin. 
 
 “It is not fentanyl-laced Norco because they haven't found any acetaminophen, which would be in Norco,” Daily said. 
 
 Toxicology reports Tuesday show the pills are actually fentanyl pills made to look like Norco tablets. The health department said the test results showed signs of hydrocodone and acetaminophen. 
 
 “It concerns me because it's part of a distribution network of drug dealing going on in our community,” Daily said. “There's probably more to come.” 
 
 Show Transcript Hide Transcript BRIAN: A DEADLY COCKTAIL SOLD ON SACRAMENTO COUNTY STREETS. NOW AN UNPRECEDENTED SPIKE IN OVERDOSE >> IT'S HARD WITH THE PUNCH. 20 PEOPLE HAVE ENDED UP IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM SO FAR. FIVE HAVE DIED EDIE: AND INVESTIGATORS ARE BLAMING A TAINTED PAINKILLER. KCRA'S VICKI GONZALEZ IS LIVE A UC DAVIS MEDICAL CENTER WITH THE INFORMATION ALARMING HEALT PROFESSIONALS. FOURTEEN OF THE 20 CASES ARE BEING TREATED AT UC DAVIS MEDICAL CENTER THE PRESCIPTION DRUG NORCO, ALONG WITH VICOD OR OXYCOTIN, IS COMMONLY SOLD ON THE STREETS FOR JUST DOLLARS A PILL BUT IT'S WHAT NORCO IS LACED WITH THAT CAUSING THE DRAMATIC SURGE IN OVERDOSES A KNOCKOFF PAINKILLER IS TAKIN LIVES IN SACRAMENTO COUNTY. IT JUST SHOWED UP WITHIN 2 HOURS, 48 HOURS, YOU KNOW THAT MANY PEOPLE OVER DOSING? FIVE NOW DEAD, 15 HOSPITALIZED IT'S VERY SCARY JON DAILY IS THE FOUDER OF THE DRUG ABUSE CENTER RECOVE HAPPENS. AND HAS SEEN A RISE IN ABUSE OF THE EXCEPTIONALLY STRONG OPIOI FENTANYL. IT COMES IN AND HITS HARD WITH A PUNCH RIGHT AWAY, AND VE INTENSELY. THAN HEROIN PEOPLE INCREASINGLY WANT A STRONGER DOSE OVER TIME AND THAT'S WHY THE APPEAL WOULD B THERE. HOWEVER SACRAMENTO COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH SAYS A NEW STREET-MARKE PILL MIXING FENTANYL WITH THE PRESCRIPTION NORCO HAS RESULTE IN 20 OVERDOSES OVER 4 DAY I'VE NEVER SEEN IT IN MY CAREER. WITH ANY SUBSTANCE. PATIENTS RANGE IN AGE FR MID-20'S TO 50'S. OUR HOPE IS THAT IT WILL STO BECAUSE I THINK IT IS VE WORRISOME WHEN YOU HEAR THE STORIES OF PEOPLE TAKING ONE OR TWO PILLS AND SUDDENLY THEY COLLAPSE HEALTH EXPERTS NOW HOPE THE SUDDEN SPIKE DOESN'T BECOME A DANGEROUS TREND. THERE'S MORE QUESTIONS THA THERE ARE ANSWERS AT THIS POIN >> HEALTH OFFICIALS SAY TO CAL 911 UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE BECAUSE INDIVIDUALS CAN RECOVER INITIALLY, AND THEN RELAPS BRIAN: WHY WOULD A DRUG COCKTAIL THIS LETHAL BE MAD CLARK'S IT'S STILL NOT CLEAR IF PATIENTS KNEW THE NORCO PILLS WERE LACED FENTANYL OR EVEN IF 
 
 The patients range in age from the mid-20s to 50s, according to Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. OIivia Kasirye. 
 
 The health department is awaiting the results of blood work for more answers. 
 
 "Our hope is that it will stop because I think it is very worrisome when you hear the stories of people taking one or two pills and suddenly they collapse,” Kasirye said. 
 
 “I'm confident the people will get arrested. The bigger picture is how to prevent the next crisis,” Daily said. “Drugs are not something to be played around with.” 
 
 KCRA 3's Natalie Brunell contributed to this story. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| But those figures soared over the weekend, said Laura McCasland, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento County Division of Public Health. As of Tuesday, health workers have reported 28 overdoses, with six of them fatal, McCasland said. All of them have been reported since March 23.
– Seven people have died—and nearly two dozen others have been hospitalized—in California's Sacramento County after overdosing on fentanyl, reports CBS Sacramento. Fentanyl is a painkiller much stronger than morphine and can produce a euphoric high, reports the Los Angeles Times. According to the Sacramento Bee, it's been causing deaths on the East Coast, but this appears to be its first appearance in Northern California. "We hoped it would never come here," one San Francisco-based DEA agent says. "But it was only a matter of time." Fentanyl is often disguised as other drugs, and the California victims likely thought they were taking the prescription painkiller Norco, KCRA reports. The federal government is calling fentanyl a "serious health threat," and the DEA is investigating the overdoses in Sacramento County. "I've never seen a substance like this,” an addiction specialist of 20 years tells KCRA. Fentanyl can be fatal within minutes, and the victims—who were in their 20s through 50s and purchased it on the street—may never have known they were taking it. "It is very worrisome when you hear the stories of people taking one or two pills and suddenly they collapse,” a public health officer tells KCRA. (Heroin laced with fentanyl was believed to be responsible for 74 overdoses in 72 hours last October in Chicago.)