LETHAL FORM OF HEROIN TAKES STEEP TOLL HERE

Three deaths, 35 overdoses are blamed on the lethal form of drug
plaguing the city. And the mixture has caused at least 100 deaths
from Philadelphia to Chicago

City police detectives were working overtime to scoop up drug dealers
and lean on users for information as a lethal batch of heroin snaked
its way through city neighborhoods and beyond, causing at least 35
overdoses and as many as three deaths.

The heroin, which has cropped up in at least eight Pittsburgh
neighborhoods since Saturday, is likely laced with the potent
painkiller fentanyl, about 80 times stronger than morphine.

As authorities tried to make a dent locally in the heroin trade, the
federal government announced yesterday that it had worked with Mexico
to close a lab across the border that might be the source of the
fentanyl that has killed heroin users in Pennsylvania and seven other states.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, said it was still not clear whether the fentanyl was
mixed with heroin at the lab in Mexico or after it entered the United States.

Mr. Walters, speaking to reporters in Chicago yesterday, warned drug
users that millions of deadly doses of fentanyl-laced heroin might
still be on the streets. The mixture has caused at least 100
confirmed deaths from Philadelphia to Chicago in recent months.
Fentanyl might also be coming from other sources, he said.

"There may be more than one source," Mr. 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 the western Mexico city of Guadalajara
but does not yet have confirmation that the drug is linked to the
U.S. deaths, DEA spokesman Steve Robertson said.

City police said they have arrested five people since the outbreak
began Saturday, but they declined to release any details, saying that
the investigation was ongoing.

Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Thomas Stangrecki cautioned that even if
officers bust the source of the bad heroin that has flooded
Pittsburgh, it will take time for the batch on the streets to dwindle
and finally disappear. It is not known how much of the heroin came
into Pittsburgh or how it was divvied up among dealers.

"We're going to see it for a while until the supply is diminished,"
Cmdr. Stangrecki said yesterday during a news conference. "It's going
to take more than one arrest to stop this."

Overdoses believed to be connected to the heroin, which has been
found in small packets called stamp bags marked "Get High or Die
Trying," have occurred in Beechview, Greenfield, Hazelwood, the Hill
District, Lincoln Place, the North Side, the South Side and Squirrel Hill.

Other name brands are thought to be involved, but police have been
unable to confirm that, Cmdr. Stangrecki said.

The heroin also has shown up in Bethel Park, Brentwood, Tarentum and
West Mifflin. It sells for $10 to $15 a packet. Users range from 16
to 56 years old, cross socioeconomic lines, and are white. Most are men.

West Mifflin Police Chief Joseph Popovich said his department's
encounter with the drug happened Sunday around 4:15 p.m. A man in his
30s who had taken heroin was found turning blue in a car parked on
Lebanon Road near Miller Road.

The heroin came from Hazelwood, the man shot up in West Mifflin, and
the case was turned over to Pittsburgh, Chief Popovich said.

Some arrests were made Friday involving the "Get High or Die Trying"
stamp bags, but it was not until Saturday afternoon that Pittsburgh
police first noticed something amiss when four overdoses were reported.

On Sunday, the number of incidents multiplied and included a
fatality, Joseph Zielinski, 45, of Penn Hills, who was found in an
apartment on Greenfield Avenue.

Yesterday, anyone listening to a police scanner would have heard
numerous calls throughout the day for overdoses, including two
fatalities in Hazelwood.

At 9:13 a.m., Lynn A. Margavo, 30, was found dead in her home in the
5200 block of Gertrude Street. And at 10:11 a.m., Dorothy Iannone,
56, of the 5100 block of Roma Way, was found dead. The cause and
manner of both deaths were pending toxicology results.

A sampling of yesterday's overdoses followed the same pattern as
Sunday's, with some cases involving motorists. Just after 10 a.m.
yesterday, for instance, a man who had used the heroin lost
consciousness and drove his Mercury Villager minivan over the curb
and into a tree in the 100 block of Flowers Avenue in Hazelwood.

The driver, who was wearing his seat belt, was leaning back in his
seat, unconscious. Firefighters from a nearby station house ran to
the scene and began working to revive the man, who had a strong pulse
but was having difficulty breathing, according to Capt. Greg Lowman.

The man regained consciousness in about five minutes, after
firefighters and paramedics administered rescue breathing and a
reversal agent, Capt. Lowman said.

"He claimed to be sleeping, but it was an obvious overdose," Capt. Lowman said.

About 3 p.m., the driver of a dump truck parked at a CoGo's in the
2400 block of East Carson Street was found unconscious, slumped over
the truck's steering wheel.

A store employee, who would not give her name, said paramedics pulled
the man from the truck's cab and laid him on a stretcher while
attempting to revive him. The man had a pulse but was struggling to
breathe and appeared to be completely incoherent, with his arms
flapping lifelessly at his sides, the employee said.

It could not be determined whether those incidents were linked to the
potent heroin because police were unable to provide a breakdown of
where and when the overdoses took place.

Late yesterday afternoon, Allegheny County's crime lab had analyzed
one of three samples of heroin residue from stamp bags seized by
police and determined that fentanyl was present.

Test results on the blood of the three people who died after
apparently using the heroin would likely take until the end of the
week, said Dr. Frederick Fochtman, director of the forensic science
laboratory division and chief toxicologist of the county medical
examiner's office.

"It's so very potent that it only takes a very small amount to have a
toxic event," Dr. Fochtman said of fentanyl. "If somebody has this in
a powdered form, how are they weighing it? How are they putting it in
these packets? All you have to do is make a very little mistake and
you have an overdose."

Authorities walk a thin line between the potential good of
publicizing information about a heroin-fentanyl mixture and warning
users of the danger, and tantalizing hard-core addicts who might seek
out the bad dope for a powerful high.

"A hard-core addict, when they're using the heroin, sometimes they're
only getting enough to prevent them from going into withdrawal," Dr.
Fochtman said. "If they feel there is something out there they can
take that will also make them high, they'll seek it out."