FATAL OVERDOSES BREAK RECORD, CORONER SAYS

CARLISLE - Deaths from accidental drug overdoses set an unsettling
record in Cumberland County last year, according to Coroner Michael Norris.

Seventeen people died in 2006 from misusing prescription or illegal
drugs, or mixtures of them, Norris said.

That tally far exceeds the prior record of eight accidental drug
overdose deaths set in 2004, he said.

"This is the first time that drug deaths have shot up to that level,"
Norris said in his annual report to county commissioners yesterday.

It is too early to tell if the 2006 figure is an anomaly or the
herald of an ominous trend, he said.

Overdose-death tallies secured from two other midstate coroners'
offices painted a mixed picture.

Dr. Jeffrey Yocum, Lebanon County coroner, also voiced concern about
a rise in such deaths. "There are certainly more drug-interaction
deaths than we've had before," he said.

According to his annual report, there were eight such deaths in
Lebanon last year -- three related to prescription medications and
five from illegal drugs including cocaine, heroin and the designer
narcotic Ecstasy.

York County logged 37 accidental drug-overdose deaths in 2006, six
more than in 2005, said Vivian Howell, administrative assistant to
Coroner Barry Bloss. Such deaths average in the 30s annually for the
county, she said.

Statistics from Dauphin and Perry counties could not be obtained yesterday.

Norris said two of the Cumberland overdoses involved drugs prescribed
to the victims.

The other 15 involved eight drugs, including alcohol, sometimes used
in combination, he said. Those were methadone, fentanyl, oxycodone,
darvon, Valium, cocaine and heroin, he said.

In October, Norris and District Attorney David Freed issued a public
warning after two county residents died from ingesting mixtures of
heroin laced with fentanyl, a high-powered painkiller used mostly in hospitals.