COUNTY FEARS RISE IN DRUG DEATHS

Campbell County officials believe there may have been as many as seven
opiate and prescription drug-related deaths there over the last three
months, already exceeding the six during the first half of this year.
Four of the seven most recent deaths have been confirmed as
opiate-related by state medical examiners, but Campbell County Coroner
Mark Schweitzer said in the three other cases, preliminary
observations at the time of death pointed to opiate use.

If those three are confirmed as opiate-related, that would bring
Campbell County's total for the year to 13.

Boone County has seen only three opiate deaths so far in 2004, while
Kenton has seen 10. In Hamilton County, there have been 31 deaths from
opiates.

The major culprit in Campbell right now looks to be heroin, possibly a
more potent supply. State medical examiners say that seven of the 10
confirmed drug-related deaths this year in Campbell County stemmed
from some type of opiate use.

The state ruled that an overdose of heroin, one of the most common
opiates, caused the deaths of a 23-year-old Newport man and a 41
year-old Southgate woman in August.

Schweitzer said in the last two weeks he has seen four deaths in which
preliminary observations pointed to heroin or prescription drug use.

Those signs include foaming on the victims' mouths and drug
paraphernalia on the premises.

The latest death was on Sept. 19, a 38-year-old Dayton
man.

Schweitzer declined to identify the victims because state medical
examiners hadn't made official rulings yet.

"We're definitely seeing a lot of these cases, but I don't know if
that means we're necessarily going to have more of these types of
deaths than we did last year," said Schweitzer, noting that last year
Campbell had about 20 opiate/prescription drug-related deaths. "These
seem to occur in waves, but we'll just have to see."

The spike in drug-related deaths in Campbell could signal that there
is a new supply or supplier in the area, officials say.

Jim Liles, executive director of the Northern Kentucky Drug Task
Force, said opiate and prescription drug abusers tend to take the same
amount each time. But they can run into a potentially fatal problem if
an especially potent or tainted supply comes into the market and users
don't adjust their fixes.

"It's a case where you have people using a drug that is 10 percent
pure and then all the sudden moving up to something that is 90 percent
pure and their bodies just can't take it," Liles said. "A lot of
times, the user will still have the needle stuck in their arm when we
find them."

Deputy Campbell County Coroner Al Garnick, who worked the two heroin
deaths in August, said both appeared to be linked to an especially
powerful supply of the drug.

After shooting up, the Dayton man had time to take only a single bite
of a sandwich before he died. And the Southgate woman who overdosed
was holding a cigarette that had burned all the way down to her hand,
leaving Garnick to surmise she lit the cigarette shortly after
shooting up and didn't live long enough to finish it.

"I've never seen this many drugs on the street, and I've been a
coroner for 19 years," he said. "The situation is getting worse, not
better."

Schweitzer and Garnick worry that they could see more drug deaths if
funding for law enforcement programs such as the Northern Kentucky
Drug Strike Force continue to see budget cuts.

Liles had to cut his budget after he received only $167,000 in state
money -- $9,000 less than he'd asked for -- for the program. Boone,
Campbell and Kenton counties each kick in about $100,000 each, and law
enforcement agencies loan officers.

The rest of the strike force's budget has come from drug forfeiture
money, but most of that has dried up, Liles said. That's attributed to
two factors: an absence of big cases in recent months from which to
make forfeitures, and a trend to more small, transient drug operations
such as mobile methamphetamine labs, where there are fewer assets to
confiscate.