DRUG LAB IN MEXICO SHUT DOWN AFTER DEATHS

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, the federal drug chief said Monday.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, said it's 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 a May 28 raid of a suspected
fentanyl-manufacturing operation near Guadalajara but has not yet
confirmed that the drug is linked to the U.S. deaths, DEA spokesman
Steve Robertson said.

Five Mexican citizens were arrested during the May bust, including
one Walters described as the chemist.

Walters said that the dealers may have started using fentanyl because
they were looking for a competitive advantage on the street but that
inept mixing of the drug combination made it deadly.

He also warned that millions of deadly doses of the fentanyl-laced
heroin might still be on the streets.

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

Doctors prescribe fentanyl as a painkiller for cancer patients and
others in chronic pain. An overdose can slow breathing to the point of death.