DEATH FROM POSSIBLE OVERDOSE MAY BE LINKED TO FENTANYL

Whether a powerful cocktail of heroin and painkillers is responsible
for the death of a 17-year-old Bloomfi eld Hills girl is unknown, but
officials say it could be involved in a number of recent drug deaths
in Michigan.

Advertisement Lauren Christine Jolly, a junior at Birmingham Groves
High School, was found by a passerby slumped over the wheel of her
car on Eight Mile Road near Riopelle in Detroit early Thursday
morning. While toxicology reports are pending and could take several
weeks, police in Detroit suspect Lauren, who lived in Bloomfield
Hills, died of a drug overdose.

Lauren's parents could not be reached for comment.

According to Lauren's obituary on the A.J. Desmond and Sons Funeral
Home Web site, the teenager was creative, imaginative and fun to be
around. Her close friend Betsy Van Loo, 16, said Lauren was always
telling jokes and laughing.

"She was a really good person," said Betsy, a junior at Groves. "I
don't really want to talk about her too much. I knew her really,
really well and this is hard."

Lauren is survived by her parents, Wayne and Beth Jolly; brother
Brian; grandparents James and Sally Jolly and Christine (the late
Gerald) Hatcher and several aunts, uncles and cousins. A memorial
Mass will begin at 10:30 a.m. Monday at St. Regis Church, 3695
Lincoln in Bloomfi eld Hills. Visitation will be at 10 a.m.

Marcia Wilkinson, spokeswoman for Birmingham Public Schools, said
Lauren's parents shared with the school community their desire to
educate students about their daughter's death. There have been
assemblies with ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade students - seniors are
not in school this week - about what happened to Lauren.

"We reassured the students that there is support out there,"
Wilkinson said. "We want to encourage them to be safe about the
dangerous things going on. We also want to get the message out that
students should talk to someone if there are issues or if they have a
friend with issues. We'd like to prevent something like this from
happening again."

A deadly mixture

Lauren's parents reportedly told school officials she died of a drug overdose.

What drugs she might have used remain a mystery, but some in the
community have wondered whether the teenager was using heroin spiked
with fentanyl, a narcotic painkiller commonly used to ease the pain
of cancer patients. In recent weeks, Wayne County has had an increase
in drugrelated deaths possibly involving fentanyl, said Vanessa
Denha-Garmo, spokeswoman for Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.

"Starting last Thursday we noticed the spike," she said. "Exactly why
that is, we still don't know. That's what police are investigating."

According to Joyce Brown-Williams, public information manager for the
Wayne County Health Department, there have been 106 deaths linked to
fentanyl between September 2005 and March 2006. In the last week,
there have been more than 20 such deaths.

Deaths in several cities

Deaths linked to fentanyl also have been reported in several other
cities, including Philadelphia and Chicago.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said that in the past year,
there have been nine deaths linked to fentanyl in the county.

"This is not confi ned to Wayne County," said Bouchard. "It's a very
new trend and we're working aggressively to stop it. People need to
be aware of the ramifications of this drug."

Officials in Wayne County say they are working to get the word out
about the drug, including sending out thousands of fliers to reach
users this weekend.

"This is a serious public health issue," said Brown-Williams. "We're
doing everything we can to warn the public of the danger."

According to Janet Hoffman, a drug information pharmacist with
William Beaumont Hospital, fentanyl is a very potent drug -
especially when mixed with other drugs like heroin or cocaine. She
said that, used properly, the drug is very effective in controlling
chronic pain. But if used in higher doses or illegally, it can cause
a person to stop breathing or to have an irregular heartbeat and
could be fatal.

"It's much more potent even than morphine," she said. "We use it all
the time as a prescription medicine and it works very well if used
properly. But it can have very serious side effects."

'A very potent drug'

Hoffman said that, in recent years, fentanyl has become popular as an
additive to heroin or cocaine, likely because it can cause a euphoric
high. The drug has been around since the 1950s and Hoffman said
there's evidence it was illegally mixed with heroin and cocaine for
street use as early as the 1970s.

"It's a very potent drug," she said. "And mixing it with another drug
would increase the euphoric feeling."

Experts say Wayne County has the highest nationwide death rate
because of the mixture of fentanyl and heroin.

Bouchard said people continually experiment to get new and different
highs and fentanyl represents a new - and dangerous - trend. Most
fentanyl is stolen or obtained through illegal prescriptions, he said.

Most of the heroin seized in Oakland County recently has been laced
with fentanyl, he noted.

Heroin usage still rare

Lisa Machesky, executive director of the Birmingham Bloomfield
Community Coalition, said that while Lauren's death has stunned the
community, heroin usage among teenagers remains rare. In a survey of
high school students in the Birmingham and Bloomfield Township area
in February 2005, Machesky said 3 percent admitted to trying heroin.
She said 20 percent of students admitted it would be pretty easy to
obtain heroin.

"This is such a tragedy," she said. "She was so young. We will
continue to try and educate students and parents because that's the
only way to stop this."

In Wayne County, Medical Examiner Carl J. Schmidt said he began
noticing a rise in fentanyl-related deaths in September, but county
officials did not begin treating fentanyl as a crisis until last
week, when the number of overdoses began to soar.

"Sometimes divining what the role of fentanyl is in an individual's
death is more an art than a science," Schmidt said, noting drug users
often have multiple substances in their blood.

Before the recent surge, Wayne County had 20 to 30 fentanyl deaths a
year, Schmidt said. Those cases tended to be severely ill people with
legitimate prescriptions for fentanyl patches who committed suicide
by putting on many patches at once or the occasional person who had
stolen the drug, he said.

Point of origin

Detroit police spokesman James Tate said the department is following
up on several leads about where the fentanyl is originating. So far,
however, there is no indication that it is being manufactured locally, he said.

Officials emphasize there is help for people who have overdosed if
they get to an emergency room immediately.

"Treatment is available, and treatment works," said Michele Reid,
medical director of the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health
Agency and chairwoman of the newly created Wayne County fentanyl work group.

Lauren's death marks the second tragedy at Groves High School this
month. On May 15, Jamarl Fordham, 16, collapsed during a pick-up
basketball game with friends at the school. The exact cause of
Jamarl's death is still pending the results of toxicology reports.

Jamarl, a sophomore who liked to play basketball and was a popular
student, had no known health problems.

Officials say the deaths of Jamarl and Lauren are unrelated.