VIRGINIA BEACH SEES SPIKE IN HEROIN OVERDOSE DEATHS

VIRGINIA BEACH -- An unusual spike in heroin overdose deaths has
police concerned that there may be a powerful supply of the drug on
the streets being ingested by inexperienced users.

Five people have died from heroin overdoses in the past month, a sixth
died in March and two others overdosed this year but survived.

Officials are not calling it an epidemic, but investigations have been
stepped up to try to learn why this is happening.

``They'll get a dosage, and it's a crap shoot. They don't know what
they're messing with,'' Sgt. Dennis Santos, a Virginia Beach narcotics
detective, said Friday.

Santos and other authorities said larger cities have experienced
similar spikes in heroin overdose deaths, but this is the first time
they have seen it in Virginia Beach.

``We're not used to seeing that many,'' said Lt. Kevin Perry, a
supervisor in the homicide squad.

``It's not alarming, but it's unusual. That's what brought it to our
attention,'' he said Friday.

Toxicology tests are underway on the blood from the six victims to
determine if other drugs or poison played a part. Detectives from the
homicide and narcotics units are investigating the deaths. No arrests
have been made.

The pace of heroin overdoses this year could make 2000 a record year
for Virginia Beach. Other Hampton Roads cities could not provide the
number of heroin overdose deaths this year.

Still, on average during the past 10 years, Virginia Beach's numbers
pale compared to Norfolk and Portsmouth.

Between 1990 and 1999, Norfolk reported 101 heroin overdose deaths,
according to the state medical examiner's office.

Portsmouth reported 55 deaths during that period. Virginia Beach had
41.

In that decade, Beach deaths peaked in 1997, with 10 fatal heroin
overdoses. There were five last year and eight in 1998.

Norfolk reported 11 heroin overdose deaths last year and a record 15
in 1998.

Heroin's availability began to surge here and throughout the country
in the early 1990s, when South American drug lords added heroin to
their production lines, according to police and federal agents.

In the 1980s and earlier, heroin was smuggled in mostly from Asia and
had a purity level of 4 percent to 9 percent, Santos said. That meant
users had to cook the drug into a liquid and inject it to get the best
high.

Today, nearly all heroin confiscated by Hampton Roads detectives
originated in South America. And in some cases, its purity level is
near 100 percent, detectives said.

At that level, the drug is meant to be snorted or smoked, particularly
by new users whose bodies have not built any tolerance. That could
explain the surge in deaths in recent years, officials said.

Heroin, which depresses the respiratory system, can cause a user to
stop breathing.

Don Lincoln, group supervisor for the Drug Enforcement Administration,
said he had three recent heroin cases where the purity levels were
measured at 94.2 percent, 92.2 percent and 89.3 percent.

As the purity level has increased, so has the supply over the past 10
years. In fact, some dealers who have been arrested reported that they
were giving the drug away in order to increase usage, Santos said.

``We've noticed in the last two years there has been a marked increase
in the number of heroin cases we're working,'' Lincoln said.

Officials said they don't know if there is any connection between the
six people who overdosed in Virginia Beach this year.

According to police records, the first death -- a 20-year-old woman --
occurred March 27 on Westminister Lane.

Then in late May, the quick succession of deaths began.

On May 29, it was a 49-year-old man on Lookout Road. The next day, a
36-year-old man was found dead on Kings Arms Drive.

On June 4, a 20-year-old woman was found dead on Hermitage Road. On
June 11, a 24-year-old man was found dead on Oak Street. And on June
17, a 39-year-old man was found dead on Woodglen Court.

Detectives said one victim was a longtime heroin user, and two were
new users. They weren't sure of the history of the otherthree.

Details were not available on the two who overdosed and
survived.

One reason for the spike could be that a potent supply of heroin
entered the market and some or all of the victims purchased it from
the same source, detectives said.

That has occurred in other cities.

In a three-day period in Baltimore in 1996, 22 people went to the
hospital after ingesting heroin laced with poison. In a seven-hour
period in Philadelphia that same year, 27 people showed up at a
hospital suffering from heroin overdoses. Similar stories abound in
other large metropolitan cities, police say.

Reach Tim McGlone at 446-2343 or tmcglone@pilotonline.com