FOR ADDICTS, KILLER DOPE MUST BE GOOD DOPE

The addict, maybe more than anybody else, understands the hard nature
of certain truths. A habit is a habit, after all, and sometimes only
dope can scratch the itch.

"Your desperate seeker that's sick and needs a fix don't care," said
a man called Bane, who says he has been on and off heroin for almost
20 years. "They want the high, and in an act of desperation, they'll
disregard things." Even, he said, if they see someone overdosing.

Bane is 34 and, like many addicts on the street, goes by a name of
his own choosing. He was sitting yesterday in Tompkins Square Park
with friends and strangers alike - men like Skywalker, Dante and
L.E.S. Jewels - talking of the recent round of overdoses in the
neighborhood and passing back and forth a newspaper with the
headline, "Bad Smack."

The police and health officials are trying to determine whether a
lethal batch of opiates or cocaine caused the deaths of at least six
people who apparently overdosed on heroin or a combination of heroin
and cocaine in Lower Manhattan in the last week. They include a
homeless man who was discovered in a storage center in SoHo and
another man found dead on the floor of a portable toilet near Pier 54
on the West Side.

But there were also two young college girls who died - Mellie Nicole
Carballo and Maria Pesantez, both 18 - and it is they and they alone,
the addicts say, who have brought the attention of the wider world.

The addicts, after all, have been through this before. In 1991, they
say, it was the Tango and Cash brand, a synthetic drug called
fentanyl, which, being sold as heroin, killed 17. Three years later,
it was China Cat, a blend of heroin so pure it killed a baker's dozen
in less than a week.

The recent rash of deaths has inspired caution in the park, but also
bravado. The thinking is that killer dope is strong dope, something
to test yourself against; if the stuff is deadly, it must be good.

"I died four times in one day, and I'm still here," said L.E.S.
Jewels, a skinny 35-year-old from nowhere in particular. Under his
left eye there are four blue tattooed dots. They stood, he said, for
the four times he overdosed last week.

"People figure if they can handle it, it means the dope is good. It
means they have more tolerance for the stuff."

Jewels may soon be heading out of town - maybe out to Eugene, Ore.,
he said, to stay with friends. He mostly gets around by freight
train. His meals are often from soup kitchens and are almost always free.

It is his belief that a tainted batch of heroin came to town sometime
last week. It may have been cut or sprayed with something poisonous,
he said, or exposed to some sort of toxin in a warehouse or a truck.

The brand, or stamp, that knocked him out four times was from a blue
bag, he said, though another in a clear bag also knocked him out.

If you are wondering, by the way, what it feels like to overdose four
times in a 10-hour period, Jewel is not much help. He doesn't
remember a thing about how it felt.

"You just don't know it's coming," he said of an overdose. "It hits
you and the next thing you know, you're surrounded by E.M.T.'s."

The rumors are moving through the park: don't buy from so-and-so; the
blue bags are bad; the clear bags are bad. Some say the brown powder
is the deadly stuff. Some say the gray.

"There's a lot of concern with people asking what stamps people are
dying from and where they're copping," said a sinewy man named
Travis, who is 30. "I was told that one of the bad stamps was XXX -
like the Vin Diesel movie."

The uncertainty has led to addict speculation - anything to minimize the risks.

"There's ways to be smart about taking chances," said a dreadlocked
girl named Shannon, 24. First of all, she said, don't buy from
strangers. And take a half-dose at first, not a whole. "You can
always do more, but you can't do less."

Skywalker, in his dingy woolen cap, suggested having someone else try
the batch first. It was noted that the kings of old once did that
sort of thing. He smiled to himself and laughed.

Eddie's way has been to just stay drunk the last few days - after
all, no heroin, no worry. Eddie is young but will not say how young.
He's been around, though. He had "a 10-year San Francisco habit," he said.

Then the man from the outreach center came by. His name was Van Asher
and he had a pretty dog.

He started telling people not to drink on heroin, since alcohol and
dope were both depressants that slowed the heart. "If you're drinking
and doing opiates," he said, "do the opiates first because, with
them, there's no quality control."

It has upset Mr. Asher that "all the sudden, everybody's talking
about killer dope, when I know several people who've died at roughly
the same time who apparently were not newsworthy because of their
compromised life situations."

He mentioned a man named Face, who, he said, was brain dead from an
overdose last week. Then he mentioned Christopher Korkowski, 24, a
hairdresser found dead last Wednesday in his apartment on Avenue B.

Mr. Korkowski was never mentioned by the papers, Mr. Asher said,
until "two attractive college students" died. "Then he became a footnote."

Of course, it all makes sense to Raumy, a 20-year-old man who is
something of the resident philosopher. Raumy takes no drugs, he said
- - in fact, he said, he does not even drink. His job, according to
him, is to act as the designated baby sitter for all of his addict friends.

"A junkie's looked down upon as a waste of skin and a Social Security
number," Raumy said, waxing philosophical again.

"The funny thing is, there's no such thing as a bad batch. It's all
bad. Eventually, you're still going to die."