The lethal combination of heroin and fentanyl that had been making its move along the East Coast has now killed at least 80 people in the last few weeks.

The tainted heroin has now drawn a bulletin from the Drug Enforcement Association to local authorities for “killer heroin.”  Fentanyl is considered 80 times stronger than morphine and is used for people in extreme pain such as cancer patients.

Police in Vermont have released information that pure fentanyl is being sold as heroin in their state.

Ellen Unterwald of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at Temple University said the dealers sell the drug as creating a “super high” but don’t mention the fentanyl.   Unterwald said just a small amount of the drug can be lethal by stopping the victim’s breathing.

New York City police released information that the heroin that killed actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was not a tainted batch of heroin but pure drug.