HEROIN OVERDOSES ON THE RISE

Officials Fear Spread Of Lethal New Mix

Heroin is becoming a much deadlier problem in Greater Cincinnati,
with overdoses skyrocketing and a more lethal combination drug making
the rounds, officials say.

The problem is hitting communities across the region:In Covington,
paramedics say their number of heroin overdose calls in the past six
months have climbed from about two a month to nine per week.

In Independence, six people overdosed on the street drug on one
August day alone.The Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force has seized
more of the opiate this year than in the last five years combined.

Cincinnati Police also are seizing more heroin this year and calls to
drug information officials in Cincinnati are surging.

More troubling is that police and health professionals fear a trend
sweeping larger Midwestern cities this spring may have moved here:
drug dealers' selling addicts heroin laced with the powerful
painkiller fentanyl. Addicts are told the combination will mean a new
and better high, but the mix can easily be much deadlier than heroin
alone because fentanyl is 50 to 80 times stronger than morphine.

"We do have subjective information from addicts that they have been
seeking out more potent heroin in the area," said Cincinnati Drug and
Poison Information Center Toxicologist Jan Scaglione. "This is
probably one of the things we're tracking closest, though, because of
the risk associated with its use.

"Unfortunately, with the mindset of somebody who is an addict, it
also often becomes more attractive as a bigger, better high.... That
worries me.

"The surge in heroin overdoses has been particularly dramatic in
Northern Kentucky.

Florence Fire Chief Marc Muench counts at least a half-dozen heroin
overdoses in the last two months - more than his department usually
sees in a year. And in Independence, six people were taken to
hospitals with heroin overdoses on Aug. 20 alone, though
investigators are unsure if there is any connection among the cases.

In Northern Kentucky's largest city, Covington Emergency Medical
Services Director Carl Chalk said the problem has been particularly
extreme. "We used to see heroin overdoses of about one or two a
month, but in the last six months we're seeing six to nine a week."

Chalk said that, based on the amount of the overdose antidote,
Narcan, that many victims are requiring, he suspects many ingested a
fentanyl-laced drug.

"Normally, if we have a person with a narcotic overdose, we give them
two milligrams of Narcan," he said. "But, with heroin overdoses with
fentanyl, we've given them up to eight milligrams of Narcan," said Chalk.

He's now ordering 12 times the amount of the costly drug that he
ordered last year.

Though fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is many times stronger than
heroin, health professionals say it kills in much the same way, by
stopping breathing, leading to cardiac arrest.

Scaglione said there is no reporting procedure in place to quantify
heroin, or heroin/fentanyl overdoses locally. Last May, though, the
Ohio Early Warning Network posted alerts about fentanyl-laced heroin
overdoses plaguing Chicago and Detroit. Since then, Scaglione said
undercover drug agents have purchased samples of such drugs around
Dayton and Columbus.

A Newport woman who recently lost her husband to an overdose believes
fentanyl-laced heroin has arrived on local streets. The woman asked
not to be identified to protect her children from embarrassment.

She said she knew her husband was addicted to heroin, but she
believes a new dealer sold him fentanyl-laced heroin two weeks ago,
which she thinks killed him.

"I think he got something bad ... from the new dealer," she said."He
had two years of doing heroin, and he wasn't doing an excessive
amount or anything different than what he was normally doing. That's
what makes me think it had to be something bad in it."

Final laboratory test results on the Newport man's blood are months
away, so it's unclear whether the heroin suspected in his death was
mixed with fentanyl. With or without fentanyl, though, authorities
say it is clear more heroin is on the streets throughout the region.

"We have seized ! more her oin this year than we have in the last
five years total. In the last several cases we've worked, combined,
we've gotten almost 250 grams of heroin." said Northern Kentucky Drug
Strike Force Director Jim Liles.

"We're definitely seeing an upswing," said Cincinnati Vice Squad
Commander Howard Rahtz. "We are seizing more of the drug than we did in 2005.

"Though fentanyl's existence in heroin makes the drug more lethal,
everyone agrees heroin alone is still quite capable of killing its
users, who are among the most desperate drug addicts when it comes to
seeking an increasingly elusive high. It's that desperation that
authorities believe prompted clandestine labs to begin producing
fentanyl to satisfy heroin addicts' cravings.

Newport Paramedic Randy Childress said his department's increased
heroin overdose calls this summer strongly suggest that
fentanyl-laced heroin has hit the streets here and that addicts are
flocking to it. He relayed a recent incident to illustrate the
addict's draw to such deadly combination drugs.

"We took in two people to the hospital who had overdosed together,
and a nurse overheard them afterward calling from a public phone,
thanking their drug dealer for such a potent drug," Childress said.
"That's scary. They don't realize how close they were to dying."

Most local coroners reported increased heroin overdose deaths this
year. Because lab results take months to complete, however, coroners
could not definitively say how many overdose deaths recently are due
to heroin, or how many might have also involved fentanyl.

What remains impossible to quantify is the ripple effects such
overdoses have on the addict's family. The Newport woman who lost her
husband this August said she watched addiction eat away at the man
she loved until there was nothing left but a devastated family and a
dead father and husband.

She wonders what she could have done different to save him. She
questions whether she should have had him arrested. She searches for
the answers to her children's questions now that their father is gone.

"Our kids want to know why," she said. " 'Why is my dad dead? Why did
it happen to my dad? Why were they allowed to sell it to him? Why
aren't they in jail?' Those are questions I just can't answer."