DENVER (KDVR) — The deaths of five drug users in Colorado fit into a nationwide trend. The district attorney for Adams and Broomfield counties said the suspected cause of death for five people found dead in an apartment on Sunday afternoon was cocaine laced with fentanyl.

Drug overdoses usually happen in much higher numbers with opioids, as opposed to stimulants such as cocaine. The Commerce City apartment deaths, though, underscore a national pattern where cocaine and other illegal street drugs contain more than what drug buyers wanted.

The rate of cocaine overdoses in the U.S. has more than tripled in the last 10 years, according to overdose data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Opioids were responsible for nearly all of the uptick in cocaine-related deaths, rather than cocaine itself.

In 2009, the rate of cocaine overdoses in the U.S. was 0.7 per 100,000. That rate climbed to 1.1 by 2019. The rate of cocaine overdoses involving an opioid such as fentanyl, however, rose from 1.4 to 4.9.

Colorado’s statistics reflect the same trend.

The 12-month total of cocaine overdoses in Colorado doubled from 122 in July 2018 to 240 in September 2021.

Overdoses from synthetic opioids previously matched cocaine overdoses, but that changed significantly in the past few years. In the year ending July 2018, there were 126 synthetic opioid deaths in Colorado. That grew seven-fold by September 2021, when 896 people died.