NEW KILLER - FENTANYL-HEROIN MIX

A Lethal Combination Of The Pain Killer Fentanyl And Heroin Is
Showing Up In The County. Officials Suspect It's Caused At Least One
Death And Several Overdoses.

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - It's a drug so deadly, police say, the
smallest grain can kill.

Mixed with heroin, it can be 100 times more powerful than morphine.

It promises drug users a more powerful kick.

A kick, police say, into the next world.

Fentanyl, a narcotic pain killer used to help cancer patients, has
hit the streets. Police say it already may have been involved in at
least one death and numerous overdoses in Lancaster County.

"Most people we find die with the needle in their arm," a Task Force
spokesman said today. "It'll kill you right there."

"The smallest grain of fentanyl can be fatal," he added, if too much
of the pain killer tips the balance from narcotic to overdose to death.

"Caution must be used by anyone handling this drug," the spokesman
explained, because it can be "inhaled or absorbed into the body
through the pores of the hands."

The drug can rapidly cause respiratory depression and cardiac arrest.

"We have to be careful when we open a bag that we buy,' from
suspected dealers, he said, wearing rubber gloves and face masks.

Since the spring, when fentanyl first started claiming dozens of
lives in Philadelphia and across the country, local investigators
have been aware of the powerful and popular drug.

Now it's here and police are awaiting laboratory tests to determine
if recent unexplained deaths may be related to its use.

On Friday, Lancaster City Police were called to investigate one man's
death, and on Saturday, Northwest Regional Police also responded to a
report of an unconscious person who later died.

Autopsy and toxicology results are pending on both people today, but
police and members of the Lancaster County Drug Task Force are
wondering whether drugs, specifically fentanyl, could have been involved.

The drug looks like heroin, the Task Force spokesman said, a
yellowish, or dusty light brown powder, and sells for $10 to $20 a bag.

Police locally and around the state say it's coming to Lancaster
County from New York, Philadelphia and Reading, and sales can be
marked with such names as "Drop Dead," or "Paradise"

"Or it's not marked at all," the spokesman said, adding that "on the
street, it's advertised as just as good or a better high as heroin."

Over the past few months, there have been hundreds of confirmed
deaths associated with fentanyl-laced heroin in eight states --
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Illinois,
Missouri and Michigan.

Police in Harrisburg and Lebanon also are investigating the
possibility of the drug resulting in overdoses in their areas.

In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration approved a "narcotic
lollipop," laced with fentanyl, primarily for cancer patients, which
can be absorbed faster into the bloodstream than a pill.

Although the "lollipops," are extremely dangerous and even fatal to
children, it offers cancer patients relief from painful attacks at home.

Previously such strong drugs could be given only through injections
in hospitals. Then fentanyl was made in a patch form to be applied to
the skin, or mixed into the small lollipop form to be taken orally.

The local Drug Task Force spokesman said drug dealers could be
scraping the fentanyl off of the patches or chewing them to release
the drug, or "since it's synthetic, making their own."

Chief Casey Kraus, head of the Northwest Regional Police Department,
said that police in Lancaster County have been notified about the
possible use of fentanyl in the area.

"Now we're a little bit more aware of it," Kraus said.

Drug use "is a reality everywhere," Kraus added. "It's here and
nobody's immune from it."