SIMILAR DRUG DEATHS PLAGUE BUFFALO

(Wednesday, August 8, 2001) -- When John Tefft was found dead in a Buffalo
rooming house on May 24 with a hypodermic needle and gear to heat heroin
next to him, he was treated as little more than a tragic overdose.

But in the weeks that followed, more overdose deaths occurred in the city.
Some heroin users were discovered dead in Buffalo with needles still jammed
in their forearms. The rash of deaths prompted Buffalo police to warn users
that there could be dangerous -- fatally dangerous -- product on the streets.

"We've had 11 (overdose deaths) since the beginning of the year, nine of
those since May 24th," said Buffalo police Lt. Mark Taggart, the assistant
chief of the department's homicide bureau. "We don't know how many people
ended up in the hospital with drug overdoses that didn't die."

Buffalo police attribute the deaths to heroin use, but are still unsure
whether there is heroin on the streets that is dangerously potent or has
lethal impurities.

Rochester police are now confronting the same dilemma, as they work to
determine what is at the root of the recent spate of suspected overdose
deaths. Heroin appears to be a likely culprit, Rochester Police Chief
Robert Duffy said yesterday, but police have not ruled out the possibility
that tainted cocaine may have led to the deaths.

Toxicology reports likely won't provide answers for a week, according to
the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office. But clusters of drug- related
fatalities are often attributed to the arrival of unusually pure heroin on
the streets. Oftentimes, the product proves to be too potent for longtime
users whose bodies are already ravaged by years of drug abuse, experts say.

In recent years, there have been occasional small clusters of heroin-
related deaths in Monroe County, according to data provided by the medical
examiner. But those have occurred in groups of twos or threes, nothing that
approaches the current suspicion of six drug-related overdoses in Rochester
and one in Greece over the past week.

The typical profile of a heroin overdose victim is a white male in his late
30s or early 40s, with a history of substance abuse, according to the
medical examiner's data.

What's worrisome to treatment providers is the likelihood that some users
won't be deterred by warnings. Some heroin addicts, hearing that there may
be a drug on the street so pure it has caused fatalities, search out the
heroin in the belief that they're immune to its hazards, some counselors say.

Yesterday, for instance, Marjorie Fries, the primary care services director
at the Main Quest substance abuse center in Rochester, made copies of a
Buffalo News article about the overdose deaths there. She carried the
copies to addicts in treatment as a warning.

"One of the clients hollered to me, 'We'd better find out who's selling it
because that's the good stuff,' " Fries said.

While it's uncertain what caused the deaths in Monroe County, there is
little question that heroin use is a growing problem. The number of heroin
overdose deaths in Monroe County swelled during the past decade, according
to the medical examiner. For instance, there were seven heroin overdose
deaths in 1990 and 1991, and 35 in 1999 and 2000.

The purer the heroin, the more deleterious the effect on a user's body,
drug use experts say.

"Heroin is one (drug) that's just going to depress your brain function,"
said Dr. John Benitez, the director of the Finger Lakes Regional Poison and
Drug Information Center at Strong Memorial Hospital. "One of those
(functions) is the center that causes you to breathe, so if you don't
breathe, you die."