AMID FENTANYL DEATHS, INVESTIGATION, ADDICTS KEEP USING

A self-described drug addict stood by a vacant lot on the city's
South Side Thursday and pointed down the block where he says more
than a dozen of his friends and acquaintances died after using
fentanyl-laced heroin.

"Joe died down there, and then there was Rita, Cherlyn, Marvin died
somewhere over there - and Chico there," said Don Howard, 59, flanked
by rows of derelict buildings and a sign atop a lamppost that read,
"Chicago Blues District."

Several miles away, police and drug enforcement officials from around
the country ended two days of discussions Thursday on the possible
source of the bad heroin that killed Don's friends and at least 100
others from Chicago to Philadelphia.

"In my almost 30 years of law enforcement experience, I haven't seen
a threat that concerns me this much," said Tim Ogden, an agent with
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office. "Fentanyl
is a very, very potent substance."

The summit provided officials from 12 states and Washington D.C. the
chance to coordinate their investigations into the spike of
fentanyl-related deaths since the beginning of this year, Ogden said
at a news conference.

There were outbreaks of fentanyl-laced heroin in the '80s and early
'90s, said Arlington, Va.-based DEA spokeswoman Mary Irene Cooper,
who was in Chicago for the meeting. The difference is that the
outbreaks aren't isolated this time to one city.

"We're trying to figure out why it's spreading so widely," she said.

Fentanyl is a legally produced prescription pain killer. But the type
of fentanyl currently being mixed with heroin is most likely
manufactured in illicit labs, Ogden said.

Ogden said that just 125 micrograms of the illegal fentanyl - the
equivalent of a few grains of salt - are more than enough to kill.

"I view fentanyl use as taking a six (chamber) revolver, putting five
bullets in it, putting it to your temple and pulling the trigger," he said.

Yet, its deadliness doesn't appear to have dissuaded hardened drug addicts.

After Chicago police publicized one street corner where samples of
fentanyl-laced heroin had been sold - thinking addicts would steer
clear of the area - drug users flocked there hoping to pocket free
heroin, Police Supt. Philip Cline said. Share your thoughts on this
story on the ChicagoDefender.com message board.

"We have willing victims here," he said. "That's part of the problem."

In Chicago, there have been more than 60 confirmed fentanyl overdoses
since April, 2005, with the vast majority of them coming this year,
the DEA said. Detroit, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware have
also reported an uptick in fentanyl deaths.

Howard, who also goes by the nickname "Moon," agreed there is less
fear among many addicts than non-addicts might presume.

"Some addicts are frightened, but others aren't," he said. "They just
feel that if it's their time it's their time."

"Suicidal behavior comes from being an addict," agreed Francois
Seets, a 58-year-old recovering addict from Chicago. "They think
they're immortal. ... And they think it (the fentanyl contamination)
will pass."

So infinitesimal are the amounts of fentanyl, said Seets, that there
is virtually no way of determining whether a bag of heroin is laced
with it. The fentanyl, he said, wouldn't affect the taste or look of
the narcotic.

"You wouldn't know it's bad until you collapse," he said.

Howard, who said he struggles to scrape together the $10 it costs for
a small bag of heroin, said he doesn't turn down free samples of
heroin - even though such samples have been linked to the recent
fentanyl deaths.

But he does take precautions.

Before settling down to shoot up a sample with friends, "I let
somebody else go first to be sure," Howard said.

Seets said the fentanyl outbreak does serve as an inspiration to him,
driving home the potentially deadly consequences of a relapse.

"It makes me understand I am mortal," he said.