Jan 23, 2017 1 min read

BEAVER (AP) – Two Pennsylvania men have been jailed on charges they caused separate overdose deaths linked to abuse of an opioid-based sedative for elephants and other large animals.

County Coroner David Gabauer says the deaths, which occurred in Beaver Falls in late November and New Brighton in mid-December, are the first in Pennsylvania linked to carfentanil.

Nineteen-year-old Hakeem Shamier Stuckey is charged with drug delivery resulting in death and other charges for the November overdose and 29-year-old Reginald Bernard Davis faces similar charges in the December death.

Carfentanil is considered 100 times more powerful than fentanyl and 10,000 times stronger than morphine.

Davis faces a preliminary hearing Jan. 27 and his attorney didn’t immediately return a call for comment Monday. Stuckey, of Aliquippa, doesn’t have an attorney listed in court documents and faces a hearing Jan. 31.