There’s no silver lining to be found in Sunday’s front-page report about fentanyl’s direct tie to the recent rash of overdoses in Butler County.

Simply put, this synthetic form of super-heroin is circulating through town like Halloween candy. Users crave it like candy. It makes them feel like superheroes — that is, until they come down from their high and crave more. Fentanyl is made of pure chemical compounds; it is 100 times more potent than heroin, which is made from the sap of poppies. Fentanyl is so strong, just a few grains, the equivalent of three sugar crystals, can kill a person.

Of the 44 confirmed fatal overdoses in the county this year, 36 toxicology reports showed fentanyl in the users’ system, with no trace of heroin.

It turns out that fentanyl is popular with drug users exactly because its potency increases the risk of getting high. Drew McConahy, a recovering addict from Butler, says the potency of fentanyl is an attraction, not a deterrent. “The stronger, the better, the more (they) want it,” he says in Sunday’s report.

It sounds a lot like a death wish. But when you think about it, that should not be a shocking revelation. The whole business of opioid addiction is a suicidal path. Hold on to this thought — We’ll come back to it.

The drug traffickers prefer fentanyl, too. It’s more drug in a smaller package — crucial considerations when your business is sneaking illegal contraband across international borders.

For traffickers, the other advantage of fentanyl over heroin is that the synthetic version does not rely on a crop grown in a distant land like Afghanistan or Mexico. Chemical components are easier to procure, ship and store than opium, the chief component of heroin. The availability of a crop is not subject to the weather, the motivation of the poppy farmers or the stability of foreign governments.

All that to say there’s not much more we can do locally that isn’t already being done to cut off the interstate supply of fentanyl.

Butler County Drug Task Force coordinator Tim Fennell says law enforcement’s strategies are limited to being reactive. “I don’t know anything preventive (we could do) that hasn’t already been tried and failed,” Fennell said. “All we can do is keep trying to get (fentanyl) off the street as much as possible, and investigate the deaths as well as possible, and follow up on those.”

Sunday’s Eagle included a companion report on the D.A.R.E. program’s efforts to stress the message about opioid dangers to young people. County Sheriff Mike Slupe’s department is part of D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) America, which is aimed at educating youths about drugs and alcohol. The officers spend a lot of time and effort stressing good decision-making, good life skills, being responsible, identifying peer pressures and how to respond to those peer pressures. With three full-time D.A.R.E. officers, the department targets 1,500 fifth-graders in schools throughout the county

This is crucial groundwork, preparing children for a world that includes false, suicidal promises like the high of addiction.

Some would say it robs youngsters of their innocence to expose them too soon to such painful realities. By the same token, there is a great price to pay when the exposure comes too late — and without a caring adult’s explanation.

Sadly, there is no known way to keep the likes of fentanyl away from our community. There will always be a new drug, a new synthetic high that’s too sweet to refuse once you’ve tasted it.

We support the D.A.R.E. message: don’t ever give in to the temptation to taste it in the first place.