UP TO 18 MAY HAVE DIED OF OVERDOSES IN HOUSTON

HOUSTON,--One man was found in a car, another slumped over a toilet. Others
were discovered in their beds. They had gotten drowsy, officials say, maybe
a little nauseous, and had fallen asleep.

Only they did not wake up. In a rash of deaths without precedent in the
Houston area, as many as 18 people may have died since Saturday from
suspected overdoses, possibly caused by a fatal cocktail of cocaine and
heroin known as a speedball.

Most of the victims were Hispanic men, many of whom lived in the same
working-class neighborhoods in the northern part of the city, suggesting a
shared source of drugs. One victim was a 16-year-old girl. The cluster of
deaths comes as overdoses, fatal and nonfatal, are rising across the
country, and as Houston is experiencing a steep and inexplicable increase in
cocaine-related fatalities. The number of such overdoses in Houston jumped
to 31 in July, compared with only 2 in July 2000. In June, there were 29
cocaine-related deaths, compared with 3 in the same month last year. As law
enforcement agencies began working with the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration today to track down the source of the drugs, officials were
trying to determine whether the deaths were caused by drugs that were too
pure or that were laced with a toxic substance.

This evening, the office of the Harris County chief medical examiner, Dr.
Joye Carter, said that preliminary testing had confirmed that 14 of the
victims had tested positive for cocaine and opiates, or heroin.

Complete test results are expected by the end of the week, and additional
testing is in under way at a D.E.A. laboratory in Washington. Dr. Carter
said symptoms attributed to some of the victims suggested that the heroin
may be the lethal part of the mixture.

She said several victims had complained of sluggishness or nausea before
apparently falling asleep, all indications of a possible heroin-related
overdose.

She said that only three of the victims were known heroin users, raising the
possibility that some people did not realize they were ingesting drugs mixed
with the opiate. "Our concern is whether you have a very potent form of
cocaine itself, or heroin itself, or whether there is a combination that is
being sold as one particular drug, what they call a speedball," Dr. Carter
said. Other officials did not rule out the possibility that the victims were
poisoned. "It could be a bad batch," said a Houston police spokesman, Alvin
Wright. "It could be somebody trying to do this intentionally." For
relatives of those who died, the day was spent making funeral arrangements
and, for many, grappling with unexpected loss. "It just doesn't make any
sense," said Juan Guzman, who found his brother-in-law, George Escobar, in
his bed on Saturday afternoon, dead from an apparent drug overdose.

He said no one in the family knew that Mr. Escobar used drugs. "It's
devastating for the whole family that this happened," said Mr. Guzman. Dr.
H. Westley Clark, director of the Federal Center for Substance Abuse, said
increasing use of heroin, particularly when it is mixed with cocaine, has
been linked to rising overdoses across the country.

Dr. Clark said a recent study in San Francisco found that speedballing was a
contributing factor in nonfatal overdoses.

He also said that the purity of street heroin sold nationally has risen
dramatically as competition between dealers has intensified. "The fact that
overdoses are occurring is enhanced by that," Dr. Clark said. The deaths in
Houston began with four on Saturday. There were 11 on Sunday, and 3 more
today.

The family of one victim, David Torres, said that he was a dialysis patient
and that they believed his death had been wrongly linked with the others.

And one of the deaths today was only tentatively included on the list. Law
enforcement officials in Houston and surrounding Harris County said they
were unaware of any jump in drug trafficking in the area and did not know
why the number of fatal cocaine overdoses had risen so sharply in the last
two months. Dr. Carter noted that the jump in overdoses has come since the
city was flooded by Tropical Storm Allison in June but said she was not
certain of any connection. The police, meanwhile, were investigating whether
the fatal drugs were coming from a single source.

Some of the victims were known drug users, the police said. "We're talking
to as many people as we can find on the streets to see if we can identify
where this stuff is coming from," said Capt. Dick Henderson of the Harris
County Sheriff's Department. "Unfortunately, people who use dope really
don't want to tell you a whole lot. It's making it real difficult to locate
where the source is." Irma Jaime said her brother, Sipriano Lopez, left her
house at 1 a.m. on Sunday with his nephew to go to a nightclub in the
southwest part of the city after she pleaded with him to stay home and
sleep.

She said Mr. Lopez, 35, a divorced father of three who worked as an
electrician, had only started going to nightclubs recently, after he had
bought a car that allowed him to get around. Upon leaving the nightclub on
Sunday for the apartment of another relative, Mr. Lopez appeared to drift
off to sleep as his nephew drove. "They were leaving, going home," said Ms.
Jaime, who said she was unaware that her brother used drugs and wondered if
he was inadvertently slipped something at the club. "When he tried to get
him out of the car, he wouldn't wake up," she said. "What he took there I
don't know how to explain." "It just doesn't make any sense, no sense at all
to go to sleep and not wake up." Dr. Carter said she was unaware of any
potential links between the victims but at least two of the men knew each
other.

The relatives of Roberto Mello found his dead body on Saturday morning and
immediately notified the family of Mr. Escobar. The two men lived blocks
apart and worked together installing carpets and hardwood floors. Mr.
Guzman, the brother-in-law of Mr. Escobar, said family members had last
spoken to him on Friday night before he went inside the metal trailer where
he lived beside his mother's house.

Mr. Guzman said family members were stunned to learn that he was a drug
user. He said he was aware of drug use in the neighborhood but tried not to
be too aware. "Sometimes it's best if you don't know," said Mr. Guzman, who
helped his family prepare funeral arrangements. But Jose Mello said his
brother, Roberto, and Mr. Escobar were known drug users, particularly of
cocaine.

He said his mother discovered Roberto on Saturday afternoon in his bed. He
said police officers seized plastic bags from his room that contained drugs.

Asked whether anyone had tried to steer the two men away from drugs, Mr.
Mello said, "Somebody wants to do something, they are going to do it,
regardless."