MAJOR BUST IN BAD HEROIN SUPPLY

A clandestine laboratory in Mexico capable of producing millions of
doses of the potent, sometimes lethal, drug fentanyl has been shut
down, the U.S. drug czar announced Monday in Chicago, but not before
it may have contaminated supplies of street drugs here and across the country.

Heroin mixed with the powerful painkiller has been blamed for
hundreds of deaths across the U.S. in the last year, including at
least 60 in Chicago. The synthetic narcotic is being added to heroin
to give a more powerful high to users, authorities have said. Some
users have sought the combination and others may not have known what
they were buying.

Just over the weekend in Cook County, there were 13 fatal overdoses
that now are being investigated for connections to fentanyl, the
county's chief medical examiner said Monday.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, said it is too soon to know if the Mexican lab was
the biggest source of the illicit drug, which has killed people in
eight states.

But authorities believe it may have been running long enough to push
a major amount of fentanyl, used legally for pain management, into
the illegal drug market, he said.

"In effect, to be quite clear, the drug traffickers have
substantially poisoned the drug supply in the United States," Walters said.

"These are already dangerous substances, but obviously we're now
seeing in more places the effects of this incredibly powerful drug in
levels that are causing deaths."

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported the lab was located May 21
by Mexican authorities in Toluca, north of the capital. The Mexican
attorney general's office reported authorities found a
climate-controlled room in the company's space in an industrial park,
with tools and precursor chemicals used in the making of the drug.

Federal investigators said five Mexican nationals were arrested,
including a man acting as the chemist for the group.

Investigators are working to determine how much fentanyl could have
been made at the production site before it was discovered. And agents
are seeking records on the site that might provide clues as to its
production capacity and distribution channels, they said.

Deaths have been reported in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

Testing is under way to find a common chemical signature in samples
from those states that might link them to the Mexican lab, Walters
said, confirming the fears of some that crime networks will move
heavily into fentanyl production.

Investigators said they are working to determine if Chicago street
gangs are moving the drug locally. Walters said no clear national
picture had emerged that would explain which criminal networks are
transporting fentanyl around the country.

Cook County Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue said blood from 13
victims of fatal overdoses in the county over the weekend would be
tested for fentanyl. The drug is among the most powerful illicit
substances seen on Chicago's streets, he said. The narcotic,
originally produced as a surgical anesthetic, shuts down the
respiratory system, he said.

Among those suspected of overdosing over the weekend was Herman
Elmore, 31, who died at the home of a family he was staying with in
the 7400 block of South Morgan Street.

Vicky Love, who described herself as Elmore's godmother, said he was
in and out of the house early Sunday, and then came in and said he
was sleepy at about 3 p.m.

"I told him to sit down and take a nap," Love said. Several hours
later children in the house tried to wake Elmore from a chair, but he
was not breathing.

Donoghue said it would take weeks for testing to determine whether
fentanyl was in Elmore's system. Love said she did not know Elmore to
be a drug user, and said she doesn't know why anyone would try heroin now.

"They know [fentanyl] is out there, so why go out here and purchase
it when it's all over the news?" she said.

Eddy Borrayo, director of substance-abuse services at the
Pilsen-Little Village Mental Health Center, said many addicts do look
for fentanyl-laced heroin.

"If someone is getting a good high, such as with fentanyl, then
addicts will go out and say, 'Where can I get some?'" he said.
"That's what keeps them going. They're trying to find something else
that gives them their first high.

"The potency is the issue," he said. "If a dope dealer says, 'I've
got the good stuff,' that means it'll knock [the addict] out. It
might make the addict feel tranquil and go to sleep. That's what they
want. It's a pseudo-suicide, if you want to call it that."

Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration
in Washington, said there could be a number of illegal sources for
the drug, including other laboratories. Some of it has been stolen
from medical facilities where it is often used in a patch for cancer
patients and others with severe pain, Courtney said.

On June 14, Chicago police and the Drug Enforcement Administration in
Chicago will meet with law enforcement representatives from other
states in hopes of finding patterns in how the drug is distributed.

Drug czar Walters said fentanyl also would become a focus of his
office's new U.S. Synthetic Drug Control Strategy, which will target
precursor materials entering the country.

Walters, speaking after a news conference in Chicago that introduced
a new ad campaign to keep Hispanics from experimenting with crystal
methamphetamine, said for now he could only urge users not to go
looking for fentanyl.

At a treatment clinic in the mental health center, Borrayo said he
was not optimistic most addicts would listen to official pleas to
stay away from fentanyl. In his experience, he said, dealers will
often give out free samples of a new mixture to see if they have a
winning formula, and users will be in line waiting for it.

"The [dealers] will try to test it out to see if it's that good," he
said. "Then they'll increase their price."

Tribune staff reporter Hugh Dellios contributed to this report.