RISE IN DRUG DEATHS MIRRORS U.S. TREND

Alarming in their number alone, 15 suspected drug deaths in Houston last
weekend mirror a sharp rise in fatal overdoses in several states over the
last few months, including the death of a key prosecution witness in the
murder trial of a Kennedy relative.

A Chronicle survey of law enforcement and medical officials in Texas, New
York, Florida and New Mexico revealed a spike in heroin deaths in some
areas of those states this spring and summer. The officials have not
suggested the overdoses are linked, but some suspect tainted or
high-quality heroin sold cheap is to blame.

Federal and local police acknowledged that heroin prices have dropped in
the last few years as heroin use has gone up. But in Houston, officials
said there has been no recent dramatic price decrease, increase in supply
or change in the purity level that would easily explain the rash of fatalities.

Dr. Joye Carter, Harris County chief medical examiner, said she expects to
hold a news conference today to announce final toxicology results for the
15 people who died from possible overdoses in northeast Houston last
Saturday and Sunday.

Pascual S. Espinosa, 41, was the latest overdose fatality, said Rudy Flores
of the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office. He was found Sunday in the
same northeast Houston area where the other victims were found.

(Two more bodies were found in the vicinity on Thursday, but Carter said it
was too early to determine whether they died of overdoses. "We haven't
finished the screening yet," she said.)

Carter said the tests on the 15 people who died last weekend will help
determine the potency of the heroin and cocaine found in their bodies and
in a bag found near one of them.

Investigators determined through interviewing victims' families and friends
that three of the dead were heroin users and one commonly injected a
mixture of heroin and cocaine known as a "speedball," she said. The others
had some or no history of illegal drug use.

The final test results also will show any "adulterants," substances blended
with the narcotics, and will detail how the people ingested the drug.
Carter said that will help determine the drug's potency. Injecting
narcotics, for instance, often has more intense and immediate physiological
effects than other methods of ingestion, such as smoking or snorting drugs.

Some of the victims may have ingested the drugs unknowingly because
inexperienced drug dealers may have mixed high-quality heroin with cocaine
to make a lethal narcotic cocktail or may not have known how to dilute the
heroin sufficiently, Carter said.

Blending cocaine and heroin is not unusual, but rarely do people who
combine the two drugs die of overdoses. They blend the narcotics themselves
and know the dose levels their bodies can handle. If dealers sold the drugs
premixed, the mixtures may have been too toxic, Carter said.

The victims also may have unknowingly ingested the heroin because they
thought they were using cocaine only. Carter said the brown and granular
sample being tested appeared to contain cocaine and partially "ground heroin."

If a person expected to inject, smoke or snort cocaine but instead took
heroin, they would "be surprised," she said. Heroin can have much greater
effects than cocaine. And if the two drugs were mixed, the effects could be
fatal, she said, depending upon the amount taken and potency.

Illegal drug users have a difficult time determining exactly what they
purchase, she added.

"Do you know what you're getting?" Carter asked.

Several areas nationwide recorded spikes in heroin overdoses this spring
and summer. Some officials said they found similarities in the packaging of
the lethal narcotics found near the victims.

. In Austin, the Travis County medical examiner recorded four fatal heroin
overdoses from April 21 to April 28. The area normally records no more than
two overdoses per month.

. Near Rochester, N.Y., Monroe County officials recorded eight fatal
overdoses in June and at least six more in the first week of August,
including Gregory Coleman, a key prosecution witness in the trial of
Michael Skakel, a Kennedy family nephew accused in a 1975 killing committed
when he was 15 years old.

. Police officials in Kissimmee, Fla., recorded four overdoses, including
two deaths, in an 11-day period in late July.

. In rural northern New Mexico, considered by federal narcotics agents to
be one of the nation's "black-tar" heroin distribution centers, three of
the 14 people treated for heroin overdoses in May died.

. On Cape Cod, in South Dennis, Mass., four people overdosed on heroin and
one died during a three-week period in June.

In New York, Monroe County police officials said tainted heroin may have
caused some of the overdoses.

Dr. Jean Beno, chief toxicologist for the medical examiner there, said the
rash also may be because of increased purity and lower cost. The less the
drug costs, the more users can afford to take. Often, they take too much
because the price is right, Beno said.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the price for an ounce of
heroin in Texas varies depending upon purity and locale, but over the last
several years it has dropped to the $1,500 to $4,000 range from between
$3,500 and $8,000 in 1989. A single dose costs about $10. DEA spokesman
Robert Mansaw said Texas heroin prices are similar to prices nationwide.

Most of the heroin in Texas is black-tar heroin from Mexico. Cheap
processing makes the usually white powder narcotic brown. Heroin from
Southeast Asia also can be found in the Houston area.

Other police officers noted that heroin users abstain from the drug for
several days, weeks or months because they are in jail, and when they are
released and use the drug again their bodies are unaccustomed to their
normal dosages and they ingest too much.

The increase in overdoses may reflect a growing trend toward heroin use.
The number of heroin users jumped to 208,000 in 1999 from 68,000 in 1993,
according to the most current DEA figures. The average age of heroin users
was about 21 years old in 1998, down from 25 in 1990.