HEROIN OVERDOSES KEEP TAKING LIVES

Camden County authorities spent Sunday investigating three more
apparent heroin overdoses, one of them fatal. The incidents raised to
42 the number of people requiring hospitalization for adverse
reactions to drugs since Friday.

The victim of the fatal overdose -- a 31-year-old man whose name was
not released -- was discovered around 12:25 p.m. in the Riviera Motor
Inn on Route 73 in Pennsauken, said Bill Shralow, spokesman for the
Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

A bag of heroin found in the room was stamped with the word
"Chemistry," Shralow said. Police also found crack cocaine.
Investigators believe the man purchased the drugs in Philadelphia.

Two other people were hospitalized for apparent adverse reactions to
drugs, Shralow said. One incident happened in Camden. The location of
the other was not immediately available from authorities. This is the
second rash of heroin overdoses in South Jersey in two months. Eight
people died and dozens more were hospitalized in April.

"There's no way to know right now whether the two waves . . . are
related, but certainly that's going to be investigated," Shralow
said. "There is a bad batch of something going around right now and,
if there was ever a time for somebody who's got a problem to start a
new page, this would be the time."