BUST CLOSES LAB LINKED TO DEADLY HEROIN HERE

CHICAGO - U.S. agents, working in cooperation with the Mexican
government, have closed down a lab in Mexico that might be the main
source of a powerful painkiller that has killed at least 100 heroin
users in eight states, including nearly 30 in the Philadelphia
region, the federal drug czar said yesterday.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, said it is still not clear whether the painkiller,
fentanyl, was mixed with heroin at the lab in Mexico or after it
entered the United States. "There may be more than one source,"
Walters said. "We think this is the principal source."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is testing samples of
fentanyl seized in the May 28 raid near Guadalajara but does not yet
have confirmation that the drug is linked to the U.S. deaths, DEA
spokesman Steve Robertson said.

Deaths caused by fentanyl-laced drugs have occurred in Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Delaware and
Maryland, Walters said.