DRUG-CORNER EPIDEMIC

Overdose Despite 100 Deaths In This Region, Heroin Laced With Fentanyl Is Hot

Neighbors saw the guy bolting from the back of a graffiti-stained,
abandoned house as he shouted the word that soon would ring out on
drug corners across the country.

"Overdose."

Mercedes Perez, who lives a few doors down on this North Camden
block, went to investigate.

In a junk-strewn lot teeming with flies and covered in broken glass,
she found Samantha Bender, a young suburban mother, lying dead on her
back, surrounded by empty blue bags of heroin.

"She was a pretty girl. Looked very young," said Wanda Guzman,
another neighbor. "I thought she was only about 16."

Bender was, in fact, 23, and the mother of a 3-year-old daughter. She
grew up in Gibbstown, Gloucester County. She was an avid fan of the
local music scene and the author of elegiac poetry. And she was a
beloved friend and relative.

On that April day, Samantha Bender became something else: a victim of
the drug corner.

Bender, an autopsy would show, had injected heroin laced with a
lethal dose of fentanyl, a powerful narcotic painkiller that has
caused hundreds of deaths across the country.

"We don't know why she was there," said Bender's mother, Mary Ann
Lanzetta. "She was a smart girl and had so much potential. It doesn't
make one ounce of sense."

Drug corners like the one where Bender likely copped her heroin have
been claiming lives through addiction, violence, and the lure of easy
money for decades.

But Bender's death in the 1600 block of State Street was a harbinger
for a new epidemic.

Since spring, fentanyl-laced heroin has killed as many as 100 people
in the Philadelphia region, and hundreds more in cities such as
Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh.

Despite a huge law-enforcement collaboration, investigators have yet
to unlock the mystery of the fentanyl: Where is it coming from? Why
is it being mixed with heroin? How can they stop it?

"It's come as a bit of a surprise, in some respects, that it's popped
up in so many places at the same time with such vigor," said Jerry
Daley, the executive director of a Philadelphia-Camden drug task
force known as HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area). "We know
a lot less than we'd like to."

The true depth of the problem remains shrouded, as well. No single
agency has been keeping track of victims spread across the country,
so no one knows how many have died.

"If there were this number of cases of measles, people would be
jumping up and screaming," said Steven Marcus, director of the New
Jersey Poison Center and one of the first people to notice the
fentanyl outbreak. "But it's affecting a population that people have
cast off... . There doesn't seem to be anyone in public health making
a concerted effort to get all the data together."

Still, with so many addicts falling, police and health workers have
sounded repeated alarms in the news media, bringing attention, once
again, to an illegal, multimillion-dollar business catering to
suburban demand and conducted on decrepit, inner-city street corners.

Corners such as Philadelphia's Fifth and Indiana, and Philip and
Ontario. Corners such as the notorious spot in North Camden where
Samantha Bender bought the $10 bag marked "D-Block" that would kill her.

Fifth And Grant

The 400 block of Grant Street is a tiny, one-way street where
crumbling, trash-filled vacant shells outnumber the occupied homes.
The corner, where Grant opens up to Fifth Street, bustles like a
Turkish rug market.

Someone has erected a portable basketball hoop on the sidewalk,
presumably to replace the sagging rim bolted to a piece of plywood on
the far wall. Below that, a graffiti artist, with an abundance of
irony, has spray-painted the words "drug free" in huge block letters.

The knot of young dealers passes the time pitching quarters or
playing games of basketball bare-chested. They tell reporters to
leave, that no one will talk to them. One accepts a business card,
then burns a Phillies Blunt cigar through it.

A man sitting on a nearby porch makes a halfhearted apology.

"They're just young boys," he says. "They don't know."

He says his name is Mark. He carries himself like a man in charge,
like the conductor of this corner. Then, a car rolls down the narrow street.

"No! Park the car!" Mark shouts. "Park the car!"

With a largely suburban clientele arriving in vehicles, corner
etiquette requires them to park somewhere else, then walk up for a
less conspicuous transaction.

The money goes to one member of the crew. Then Mark directs the
customers up an alley, where another crew member will dispense the heroin.

By now, this is an old game, perfected before many of today's players
were even born.

"It's been here since I came here," said Camden Police Lt. Frank
Cook, a 22-year veteran, as he sat in his patrol car recently. "It's
pervasive; especially heroin."

Police have successfully squashed the drug trade on corners such as
this. But, inevitably, it pops up somewhere else.

Camden Police Capt. Joe Richardson estimated that the city had about
4,000 dealers, baggers, cutters and lookouts making money off the drug trade.

"We're outnumbered 10-1," he said. "It's a multimillion-dollar-a-year
business."

North Camden used to be controlled by the Sons of Malcolm X, a mostly
black street gang. The gang's two leaders, Kevin Money and Jose
Perez, now reside just a few blocks away, at Riverfront State Prison.
Their territory has changed hands to a mostly Hispanic crew.

No matter who owns the corners, Fifth and Grant remains prime real
estate, a short walk from Rutgers-Camden and the Tweeter Center, and
an even shorter drive from the Ben Franklin Bridge and several of the
region's major highways.

The advent of fentanyl and its inherent dangers hasn't hurt business.
In fact, selling lethal heroin has proven a great strategy for
attracting addicts looking for the strongest dope.

"It's remarkable to me, it's totally counterintuitive. You would
think when bodies start to fall... it would scare users off. Instead,
it draws people in," said Acting Camden County Prosecutor James P.
Lynch. "We've done a fair amount of publicity to warn people off... .
We're starting to rethink that strategy now because it seems to
enhance traffic."

And, as addiction psychiatrist Ken Hoffman said, "The difference
between death and euphoria is a really fine line."

Despite the appeal of fentanyl's high, the fear of crossing that line
appears to have driven some addicts to try, at least, to get clean.
Matthew Sabo, a 45-year-old recovering addict from Gloucester City,
said the number of people attending his Broadway methadone clinic had
gone up by one-third.

"We had a doctor telling us that fentanyl was 150 times more powerful
than heroin... . People don't want to die," he said. "It's nothing
but trouble. Every day, somebody ODs out there. The whole town is infested."

Some authorities think the fentanyl problem is far larger than
reported. They say an untold number of people overdose but survive
without medical attention.

In the medical profession, fentanyl is most commonly described as
being 80 times as powerful as morphine. The experts say 125
micrograms - the equivalent of three grains of salt - can be lethal.

"It doesn't take much of this drug to get you into trouble," said
Hoffman, who works at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration. "It can paralyze your chest wall so that you
still have a pulse, but you can't breathe."

That's what would have happened to Samantha Bender and the others who
have died from the killer heroin.

Yameralis Sanchez, 16, lives a few houses from where Bender died. She
saw Bender going into the vacant house and tried to warn her.

"She looked at us like, 'It's not your house.' "

The sight of a "pretty white girl" using an abandoned home as a
shooting gallery wasn't out of place, either.

"They are always whites, every day. They still use it," Sanchez said.
"I lose count... . I see about 30 to 40 a day. I don't know how many
use it after I go to bed."

Mixed With Heroin Abroad

Daley's HIDTA task force has been coordinating fentanyl intelligence
for the region, but most investigators believe that the painkiller is
being made and mixed with heroin in foreign countries, at the upper
levels of the supply chain. In fact, federal agents busted an illicit
lab in Mexico last month, but the fentanyl deaths have continued.

There are at least a dozen home methods for synthesizing illicit
fentanyl, including one posted on the Internet by someone claiming to
be an organic chemist. One of the essential chemicals for making
fentanyl remains unregulated - and can be legally purchased by
anyone. The Drug Enforcement Administration is trying to have it
listed as a controlled precursor chemical, Daley said.

As for why the fentanyl is being added to heroin, the theories abound
"but we can't put any credence in any of them yet," Daley said.

That leaves local police with traditional tactics to fight the
epidemic - busting dealers and scaring off users. After decades of
the drug war, veteran investigators have reasonable expectations.

"There are some people you could lock up a thousand times... . As
soon as they're released from processing, they go right back. You
can't beat that," said Capt. Joe Bowen of the Camden County
Prosecutor's Office. "You'll see everything: juveniles, mothers with
children. If you stop 25 percent from coming back, that's the goal.
You'd like to do 100 percent, but that's not realistic."

Still, police in Camden have been out on the streets, fighting hard
to stem the fentanyl tide. In particular, they have targeted Fifth
and Grant with three "reversals" - sting operations in which
undercover officers pose as drug dealers to arrest addicts.

In the first sting, they netted 102 people in about five hours, many
in the morning hours when addicts need a fix to stave off sickness
from withdrawal. Then, on consecutive days last month, they arrested
91 more people at Fifth and Grant.

To begin one of the reversals, officers took control of the corner by
arriving in huge numbers, clogging the intersection with their SUVs
and allowing a K-9 dog to roam on a leash. They stood there chatting
and joking, until there could be no mistake that the corner belonged
to them for the day. Then, they disappeared.

Officers wearing baggy jeans and T-shirts, baseball caps sitting
sideways on their heads, huge gold chains dangling from their necks,
took positions at the corner. A few minutes later, about 9:30 a.m., a
white man wandered up and asked for six bags.

Those arrested were taken to a garage at the Delaware River Port
Authority building, at the foot of the Ben Franklin Bridge, where
they were photographed and fingerprinted. In a matter of minutes,
they left with a court summons. The process amounted to a minor,
embarrassing inconvenience for the addicts, but it gave police a
chance to discourage them from going back to the corners.

Bowen, a reflective 23-year veteran who helped lock up many of the
Sons of Malcolm X, approached a jittery Tara Marrollo in the DRPA
garage. Her arms and hands were covered in scars. She admitted to
shooting up as a tear mingled with the sweat on her face.

"I just can't stop," she said desperately. At 42, she has been using
for 10 years after getting addicted to pain pills. She said she used
two to three bags a day, and said she was unconcerned about a lethal
shot of fentanyl.

"At this point in my life, I don't care," she said. "If I go to sleep
and don't wake up, it doesn't matter."

Bowen warned her not to go back to Fifth and Grant, knowing her plans
for the rest of the day.

"I'm going to go back out there and try to get another bag," she said
matter-of-factly. "You have to have it to make yourself well."

As Marrollo talked, officers processed two teenage girls. One had
just finished high school. The girls arrived at Fifth and Grant in a
car with soaped windows, trumpeting the graduation.

After Marrollo leaves, Bowen stops them.

"You know what she said?" he asks the girls, gesturing toward
Marrollo. " 'I used to be just like them.' "

Bowen chats with them, asking questions about their lives, offering
Marrollo's as a cautionary tale. But the girls remain defiant.

"I'm not going to end up like her," says Tara Baker, a 19-year-old
from Salem County. "We're not stupid."

"I've been doing this for a long time, girls," Bowen says, finally.
"And they don't get much older than that."

'Dealers have no mercy'

Samantha Bender's time came to an end on April 27, four days after
her birthday. Her mother figures that she took the 402 bus, leaving
Gibbstown at 10:20 a.m. She was pronounced dead at 1:45 p.m.

Lanzetta said her daughter had been taking painkillers after a car
accident. She said Samantha hated needles, hated heroin, hated
addicts. She blamed the guy she was with. She struggled to make sense
of her daughter's death.

"Parents, pay attention to what your children are doing. Be aware.
This is no joke. Drug dealers have no mercy... . That first and only
time will kill you," she said. "I pray some good comes of this."

At Fifth and Grant, no good has come. Despite the fentanyl scare, the
200 arrests and the death of Samantha Bender, the corner thrives.

"I'm on my way to get some now," said Joseph D., a 29-year-old from
Philadelphia, as he headed toward Fifth and Grant. He would not give
his full name.

"Actually, people are trying to find it because it f-s you up. Dope
ain't what it used to be. They know it's got fentanyl," he said. "I
come to Camden because it's good, because the bags are bigger and better."