RASH OF OVERDOSE DEATHS STARTED SHORTLY AFTER METHADONE BURGLARY

Police believe a burglary to a Downtown Eastside pharmacy that
resulted in the theft of a large quantity of methadone is related to
the city's nine latest drug overdose deaths.

Vancouver police Const. Howard Chow said the burglary occurred on the
morning of Aug. 12. The first death occurred Aug. 19 and nine were
dead by Monday.

"People are buying heroin and thinking it's heroin, but it's actually
being cut with methadone," Chow said. "So they would have no way of
determining the quantity or the concentration of what they're injecting."

But Chow cautioned that until police receive toxicology and autopsy
reports, investigators can't say conclusively what the drug or mix of
drugs is that caused the deaths.

So far, police evidence points to heroin being involved. The mystery
of the poisonous drug further shows how dangerous drug use can be,
Chow said.

"There are risks, obviously, with buying any illicit drugs off the
street. It comes with no guarantees and it comes with no return policy."

The police department's drug squad has recovered a significant
quantity of the stolen methadone and other narcotics from the
burglary. The investigation is continuing, and police are not naming
the pharmacy to prevent it from becoming a future target.

Police found the body of a woman in the Astoria Hotel at 769 East
Hastings Monday and a dead man in the Cobalt Hotel at 917 Main St.
last Friday.

All victims were found in Downtown Eastside hotels, East Side rooming
houses and on the street. Six were men, three were women.

Dr. Ian Martin of Three Bridges Community Health Centre on Hornby
Street is warning patients about the lethal mystery drug. Martin's
patients have addiction and mental health problems.

"We certainly do try to make people aware when there are added dangers
on the street," he said. "How much good that is actually doing, I
don't know. It's difficult to say."

Martin said a heroin overdose is connected to a malfunction of opiod
receptors in the brain. Some of the receptors, which also diminish
pain, drive the body's respiratory system, he said.

"So what happens when someone overdoses from heroin is that they stop
breathing. That's the main worry about a heroin overdose."

When a person stops breathing, oxygen is cut off to the heart, blood
pressure dips and then a person dies, he said, noting it could take up
to 15 minutes from injection to death.

As of July 31 this year, the B.C. Coroners Service preliminary
statistics show 31 people died of a drug overdose in Vancouver-10
fewer than for the same period last year.

Heroin is processed from morphine, a substance extracted from the seed
pod of certain varieties of poppy plants. It is usually cut with other
drugs or with sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine to lessen the
purity and spread out a dealer's supply.