N.Y. ON ALERT FOR DEADLY HEROIN BLEND

A potent mix of painkillers and heroin - known as Infinity - has
killed at least four New Yorkers after claiming the lives of hundreds
across the nation in recent months, authorities revealed yesterday.

Concerned about the growing danger of the killer concoction, the city
Health Department has alerted hospitals and emergency workers.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration also has told its New
York agents and cops working with them to be on the watch for the
powerful drug, officials said.

The fentanyl-laced heroin with the street name Infinity had not shown
up in the city since the early 1990s, when a batch sold under the
name Tango and Cash killed dozens.

But last month it reemerged when a 44-year-old Bronx man overdosed on
the lethal drug combination, authorities said.

Three other men in the city have died after injecting the laced
heroin, and similar versions of the drug - sold under the monikers
Bonecrusher and MC - have caused four nearfatal overdoses in
Manhattan and the Bronx, sources said.

"It's fast and deadly," said Edmund Donoghue, the chief medical
examiner of Cook County, Ill., which encompasses Chicago.

Some 172 people in the Chicago area have been killed by
fentanyl-laced heroin since April 2005, Donoghue said.

Roughly the same number of lives have been claimed in Pittsburgh and
Philadelphia during the same period. The victims range from suburban
kids experimenting with drugs to longtime heroin users.

"Ambulances have taken to stocking the antidote because the victim's
aren't getting to the hospital in time," Donoghue said.

Fentanyl, designed to be a surgical painkiller, is between 50 and 100
times more potent than morphine, experts said.

As little as 125 micrograms - the equivalent of three grains of salt
- - can be lethal. And it's that intensity that makes it appealing on
the streets, authorities said.

"The danger is that it is so potent, so we're afraid some kid trying
it out on a dare for the first time winds up dead," said a law
enforcement source.

New York authorities grew concerned after Hector Cruz-Diaz, 44, was
found collapsed on the floor of his mom's Bronx apartment July 14. A
hypodermic needle was stuck in his arm and four bags of Infinity were
scattered nearby. Tests later confirmed the fentanyl mix.

"So far, New York hasn't had the problem of other cities," said John
Gilbride, the special agent in charge of the DEA's New York office.
"Everyone is working to keep it that way."