HEROIN DEATHS APPEAR TO HAVE DRIVEN UP DEMAND

If you want to make a killing in the heroin business, make sure a
couple of customers die.

Bad heroin has killed at least nine people in Philadelphia and South
Jersey since April 14, and dozens have been sent to emergency rooms,
authorities said.

But the news has only driven up demand, as heroin users have flocked
to drug corners looking for the powerful stuff.

Not exactly what you might expect. "But then these aren't rational
people we're talking about," Philadelphia Police Capt. Leonard
Ditchkofsky said.

He said he believed the bad drugs had been put on the street "on purpose."

Junkies agree. According to current users and recovering addicts, a
dead junkie is a drug dealer's best advertisement.

"If people die, other people think the heroin is good," said Jason
Ortiz, 31, of Camden, who said he had used heroin for 10 years. "They
think it's pure because somebody died."

Said a recovering addict at My Brother's Keeper, a treatment center
in Camden: "It's like saying, 'We got the good stuff that's really kicking.' "

Most junkies don't know that the heroin isn't killing them - it's
fentanyl, a drug used to "cut," or stretch, the heroin.

Fentanyl, a painkiller 80 times stronger than morphine, usually is
prescribed in the form of a skin patch to treat chronic pain in
cancer patients. On the street, it is sold as "China White."

Most drugs are measured in milligrams. Fentanyl is so powerful it is
measured in micrograms, much smaller units.

One sample of suspected heroin seized last week in Cherry Hill was
not heroin at all, police were surprised to discover. It was fentanyl
cut with a small amount of novocaine, they said.

Ortiz, interviewed outside the Parkside Methadone Treatment Center in
Camden, said he bought what he thought was a $10 bag of heroin
Friday. He could tell immediately it had been tainted with fentanyl.

"It tasted different," he said. He said he had been warned on the
street not to inject the drug.

"But if you sniff it, it doesn't do anything for you," he said. "If
you shoot it, that's where the problem comes."

Ortiz, like three other addicts interviewed yesterday on the street
in Camden, agreed that dealers sometimes put "o.d. bags" on the
street to attract business.

"I sold drugs, too," Ortiz said. "It draws people when you all put it
in the paper that there was an overdose. It only brings them in faster."

Another addict said no junkie believed heroin would cause his own
death. Anyone who dies of an overdose probably has some other problem, he said.

A recovering addict who identified himself only as Christo, 44, stood
with other users on Broadway in South Camden.

Heroin, Christo said, is branded just like any other marketed
product. The brands causing problems last week were Flatline, Al
Capone and Fefe, he said. Authorities also included drugs labeled
Monkey and Teflon on their danger lists.

Christo, who said he was a former professional skateboarder from
Cherry Hill, said heroin dealers may have mistakenly added too much fentanyl.

"They overcut and overkilled," he said.

Police said yesterday that they were doing their best to patrol
heroin markets on both sides of the river. "There's a lot of traffic
out there today," said Ditchkofsky, commander of Philadelphia's East
Detective Division.

Ditchkofsky said additional police patrols had been dispatched to the
city's Kensington section to discourage buyers.

In Camden, a multi-agency task force arrested 11 people Friday night
and seized 100 bags of heroin, said Bill Shralow, spokesman for the
Camden County Prosecutor's Office. He said police hoped to learn
where the bad heroin was coming from through interviews with those
they arrested.

Shralow said he was not aware of any deaths from bad heroin since Friday.

Cooper University Hospital in Camden began tracking overdoses
Thursday after noting a spike. Since then, it has treated about a
dozen addicts a day.

"It's high volume," said Kathy McLaughlin, a hospital spokeswoman,
"but we're equipped to handle that."

Oscar Hernandez, the administrator of My Brother's Keeper, said
police had stepped up patrols in northern and western Camden.

But he said he had also seen an increase of another type of traffic
the last three weeks:

White suburban youths lured to Camden by the reports of heroin that
is strong enough to kill.