SPIKE IN ODS PROMPTS FEAR OF TAINTED OR VERY PURE HEROIN HERE

A spike in fatal and near-fatal overdoses in Northwest Indiana is
prompting suspicion that heroin now in circulation may be
Fentanyl-laced, extremely pure, or a combination of both.

In a guest commentary published elsewhere in today's edition of the
Chesterton Tribune, Rocco Schiralli, president and CEO of
Porter-Starke Services, is reporting six deaths in the last eight
weeks in Porter County, one in Lake County, and more than 20
near-fatal ODs.

"The heroin being used in Northwest Indiana RIGHT NOW is extremely
lethal," Schiralli writes.

Fentanyl-a highly potent pain killer utilized in clinical settings-was
found in 2006 to have been used to cut heroin sold in Chicago and
several fatal overdoses in that city were attributed to the tainted
product. Some of the Fentanyl-laced heroin is believed to have made
its way to Porter County and may have been responsible at the time for
deaths here.

To date, Porter County Coroner Robert Schulte told the Tribune today,
tests have not "positively" demonstrated the presence of Fentanyl in
any of this year's OD deaths.

But Schulte agrees with Schiralli that the heroin now being purchased
by addicts could be "unusually pure" or even tainted by some other
additive. "Comet maybe," Schulte said. "They cut heroin with all sorts
of things. You just don't know. Great Lakes Labs"-the contractor used
by the Porter County Coroner's Office to process samples-"can't test
for every possibility."

So far this year there have been eight confirmed or suspected fatal
overdoses in Porter County, at least four of them Dunelanders, Schulte
reported: on March 6, March 11, April 4, April 16, June 20 (a
25-year-old Chesterton man), June 28 (a 23-year-old Chesterton man),
July 17 (an 18-year-old Liberty Township man), and Aug. 7 (a
36-year-old Chesterton man). Toxicology on a ninth death, on Aug. 29,
is pending.

Schulte took particular note of the odd clustering of the deaths, most
of them in pairs separated by only a few days, and speculated that
"there may be batches of bad stuff going around."

Meanwhile, on Aug. 10, a 25-year-old Chesterton man shot himself to
death in Portage, in a case in which Schulte also believes heroin
played a role.

Yet the scope of the problem may be even greater than it appears,
concealed by the fact that local users are overdosing on the other
side of the county line.

"We've been in contact with an ER nurse in Lake County-who doesn't
want to be named-who's told us about 19 ODs at her hospital," said
Carmen Arlt, director of chemical dependency at Porter-Starke.

"And our patients are telling us the same thing. They know some of the
people who have overdosed in Lake County and they're telling us that
there's some high-potency heroin being sold and that it may be
Fentanyl-laced."

"Our kids are going to Gary and they're dying in Gary," Arlt added.
"The body count stays in Gary.

"We're very alarmed," Arlt said. "We're trying to get the word out to
the people on the street. At a minimum don't use alone. Don't use
alone and get into methadone treatment. It's the people who aren't in
treatment who are dying. I'm even more alarmed than I was four years
ago, when they had a big epidemic. I mean, this is bad."

Only a few years ago, the heroin trail typically led from Porter
County to Chicago.

Now anecdotal reports from various law enforcement agencies would
appear to indicate that local addicts are instead traveling to Gary to
make their purchases, and a man recently taken into custody told the
arresting officer that he commonly met his connection in the area of
the Gary-South Shore Railcat stadium.