NEW HEROIN-FENTANYL COMBINATION IS A KILLER 'BOMB'

Drug use and abuse continue to be a scourge and a plague on our
American society. Ask a classroom full of students if they know
someone who uses drugs and almost all of the hands are raised in the air.

Many people prefer to label themselves as recreational drug users,
while others have crossed that imaginary line from recreation into
full-blown addicts or alcoholics. There is an insanity about drug use
because of the compulsion to use and the inability to stop on your own.

Underneath the radar screen -- with the news being dominated by the
Iraq and Afghanistan war, immigration reform and alien captives, the
Korean missile scare, bird flu, and Barry Bonds' bloated homeruns --
drug addicts are dying in clusters from a strange mixture of heroin
and the powerful painkiller fentanyl. The problem is the deceased
addicts thought they were taking heroin alone. They can die just by
the heroin alone, but add the fentanyl and it's like death to the second power.

When addicts begin to die in this fashion -- Wayne County, Mich.
(70); Philadelphia (20); Chicago (30); New Jersey (20); and Delaware
(5) -- a feeling of dread and euphoria breaks out in the addiction
community. According to a report by Sarah Karush of the Associated
Press, one addict named Larry has a cardinal rule of getting high:
"Never shoot up alone, and shoot up only one person at a time." In
Larry's world, he reasons, "You need someone to bring you back."
That's the insanity part of addiction I'm talking about.

And if that's not enough about the cunning, baffling, powerful nature
of drugs on a drug user, then read this. When "(the) bomb" --
extremely high quality heroin -- begins to kill fellow addicts, they
still search for it. Even as they sometimes file past a deceased
friend who died from a heroin or a heroin-plus-fentanyl mixture in a
funeral home, their minds are filled with genuine remorse and sorrow
- -- but these addicts also long to know where can they get some of
"the bomb" which killed their friend. Is that insanity or what?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention considers fentanyl to
be 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Fentanyl kills by
inhibiting respiration, according to Detroit medical examiner Carl J.
Schmidt. "It literally suppresses your natural impulse to breathe."

No one seems to know why illegal heroin as a drug is diluted or
"stepped down" with a powerful drug such as fentanyl. Normally heroin
is cut or diluted with household substances such as starch, quinine
or flour. But we cannot afford to exhibit the "Jaws Syndrome." You
remember how in the motion picture that the great white shark was
really killing people but business persons wanted to be quiet about
it. The heroin/fentanyl shark has killed 100 people thus far. At
least one person died from a mixture of fentanyl and cocaine.

So far organizations are running needle exchanges and health programs
for drug users to spread the word about "the bomb." But that's not
enough. We must make a greater effort to deter our children from the
throes of alcoholism and addiction. We must convince our youth that
they cannot become addicts or alcoholics if they never smoke that
joint of marijuana the first time never smoke that crack-cocaine pipe
the first time never snort that line of cocaine the first time never
use that methamphetamine the first time or never take that drink of
alcohol the first time.

We may not be able to keep "the bomb" out of our community but we can
keep it from exploding -- through abstinence, education and spirituality.

Elmon W. Prier is a veteran educator and minister.