GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The fatal overdose of a 26-year-old Jenison man is the fifth death Kent County medical examiners have tied to kratom, a plant used as a pain reliever.
All five who died were young men in their 20s. The most recent death happened in early June, but the autopsy only became available Monday.
According to the autopsy, a friend of the young man told investigators that when she went to pick him up, he told her that he had done cocaine, heroin and the benzodiazepine Klonopin and wasn’t feeling well.
He reportedly became less and less responsive as she drove, ultimately failing to respond at all. The friend just kept driving, taking him straight to the emergency room at Metro Health-University of Michigan Hospital.
The man’s mother confirmed that he had a history of drug use, but said she thought he had been clean.
According to the newly-released autopsy, the 26-year-old’s official cause of death was “acute fentanyl, mitragynine (Kratom), cocaine and heroin toxicity.”
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