OCEAN COUNTY DRUG DEATHS HIT RECORD

TOMS RIVER - Ocean County is experiencing the greatest number of fatal drug
overdoses ever, according to figures released Friday by the prosecutor.

Fifty-four people in the county, 12 from the towns south of Berkeley
Township, have died from drug use so far this year, a figure that dwarfs
the 38 deaths in 2001 and 17 in 1995, Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas F.
Kelaher said.

Reporters and subordinate prosecutors huddled with Kelaher in the basement
of his office here as the prosecutor revealed the details of the trend.

"This is absolutely frightening," said Kelaher, standing before a number of
charts he had assembled to depict the epidemic. "It seems to be getting
worse as time goes on."

The prosecutor then singled out heroin, which is responsible for 27 of the
total drug-related deaths this year, as the driving force behind the fatal
trend.

"There's more heroin around and what is being sold is far more potent than
it once was," he continued. "We want to warn the public and to ask them to
reach out to anyone they know might have a problem before it's too late."

The press conference comes 18 days after The Press of Atlantic City's
article about the growing prevalence of heroin in southern Ocean County.
The drug was once found predominately in urban areas among long-time,
inveterate drug-users, but it has now reached into rural, affluent communities.

In the past, most of what was sold as heroin to street customers included
an additive like powdered milk or vitamin E. This low purity level required
users to melt it and inject it to get high. Today, because what is sold on
the street is often 75 to 90 percent heroin, users can snort or smoke the
drug and receive the same high.

Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Ronald DeLigny said during the conference
Friday that he had seen packages of heroin bearing fashion-oriented labels
such as "Polo," and "Tommy Hilfiger."

The result of this, officials said, is that the drug appeals to a younger,
more upwardly mobile segment of society. Kelaher did not have the number of
youths who died specifically from heroin, but he did have age data on how
many young people had died of drugs overall. Of the 54 people who have died
so far in the county, 14 were under the age of 32.

Also, the number of fatalities is not the only indicator of widespread drug
use. The prosecutor found there had been 202 occasions when a patient was
admitted to an area hospital because of a drug overdose and did not die.
That includes 70 instances for Southern Ocean County Hospital in Stafford
Township. Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood, Brick Hospital in Brick, and
Community Medical Center in Dover Township were the other hospitals surveyed.

The conference came just minutes after the sentencing of an Eatontown man
on the rare charge of "drug induced death," in state Superior Court in the
county courthouse across the street from the Prosecutor's Office.

The charge is brought against a drug dealer when one of his customers dies
from the drugs he sold him. It is extremely rare, Kelaher said, because it
is so hard for authorities to find the dealer who sold the drugs involved
in a fatal overdose. "Most of the time people (buy drugs) very quietly,"
Kelaher said. "They go up to Newark or such. It's the first time we've done
this since I've been here."

Pierre Binot, 26, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for selling heroin to
23-year-old Brick resident John Spanpanato in April 2001. Spanpanato died
later that day from a heroin overdose. During the sentencing hearing
Assistant Prosecutor DeLigny said heroin is, "bringing down a generation."