POLICE WATCHFUL FOR 'KILLER DRUG'

MetroWest officials are on the alert for a new deadly concoction of
drugs -- heroin and fentanyl -- linked to at least 100 deaths around
the country. Overdoses have been reported in Illinois, Michigan,
Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland,
blamed on fentanyl-laced drugs, federal officials said earlier this
month. Ashland Police are investigating whether a heroin-related
arrest Friday night and two heroine-related overdoses in the last two
weeks are tied to this new "killer drug."

"When drug addicts hear that someone overdosed, they figure it's real
good, pure sh--, and they want it," said Ashland Police Detective
Greg Fawkes. Doctors prescribe fentanyl as a painkiller for cancer
patients and others in chronic pain. It's between 50 and 100 times
more potent than morphine. An overdose can slow breathing to the
point of death. Use of the drug can also lead to irregular
heartbeats. Ashland emergency crews responded to a medical call
Friday and one about a week earlier where patients had gone into
respiratory arrest, said Fawkes. Through interviews, police learned
both patients -- drug users for more than 20 years -- had injected
themselves with a single bag of heroin before they stopped breathing.
Their reaction was unusual because it should have taken at least
three to five times more heroin to cause that reaction, Fawkes said.
Ashland Police said they are also sending to the State Police Crime
Lab in Sudbury the five bundles of heroin seized Friday from Jose
Rivera, 46, of Framingham. Rivera is charged with heroin possession
and distribution. The arrest took place on Union Street. "It could be
real pure heroin, but I doubt it," Fawkes said. Police believe Rivera
was with at least one of the people who overdosed, said acting Chief
Scott Rohmer. "Obviously, this is concerning. We don't want anyone to
get hurt,' said Rohmer. "That's how desperate people on drugs are.
They'll risk their life for the high." The state Department of Public
Health last week issued a warning to police departments, hospitals,
emergency services and substance abuse programs about the
heroin-fentanyl combination. "While you want to get the word out, you
don't create a market for what could be a deadly drug," said Michael
Botticelli, the DPH's assistant commissioner for substance abuse
services. "People will seek out the most potent form of the drug."
The DPH has not heard of any official reports of heroin-fentanyl
overdoses in the state, but that does not mean they are not
happening, Botticelli said. He said he would not be surprised if
overdoses are soon blamed on the mixture because of the amount of
heroin in the state. The disturbing thought is the effects of the
combination could vary, he said. "This is not pharmaceutical-grade
fentanyl. This is street-level fentanyl, which is part of what makes
it so dangerous," said Botticelli. "There's no accounting for what
the quality is, what the power is, so people are really taking a chance."

The drug is also starting to show up in New York City, New Jersey and
Connecticut, Fawkes said. The state police narcotics unit has not
seen a noticeable uptick in cases with this combination of drugs,
said Emily LaGrassa, spokeswoman for the Middlesex district
attorney's office. Milford Police detectives have seen no cases
related to this new strain of drug, Chief Thomas O'Loughlin said.
"We're seeing the usual heroin runs up through Rhode Island to us,
Worcester and Framingham. It's the same players," said O'Loughlin. "I
hope we don't see it."

Similarly, towns like Framingham, Marlborough, Natick, Holliston,
Hopkinton, Wayland, Sudbury and Bellingham have had no run-ins with
the drug. They are on the lookout, officials said. "I know heroin has
picked up again, unfortunately, but we have not seen this combination
of drug," said Bellingham Lt. Kevin Ranieri. Last month, U.S. agents
working in cooperation with the Mexican government, closed down a lab
in Mexico that might be the main source of the heroin-fentanyl
combination. John Walters, director of the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy, said June 5 it was not clear whether
the fentanyl was mixed with heroin at the lab in Mexico or after it
entered the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
is testing samples of fentanyl seized in a May 28 raid of a suspected
fentanyl-manufacturing operation near Guadalajara, but had not yet
confirmed that the drug is linked to the U.S. deaths, DEA spokesman
Steve Robertson said in a June 5 press conference. (Material from
theAssociated Press was used in this report.