Pubdate: Sat, 08 Jul 2006
Source: Times Leader  (Wilkes-Barre, PA)
Copyright: 2006 The Times Leader
Contact:  http://www.timesleader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/933
Author: John Davidson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

TAINTED HEROIN IS SUSPECTED IN DEATH OFFICIALS SAY

Drug Use

Wilkes-Barre Has Seen A Spike In Overdoses In Past Week, Including Five Friday

"I've been here 12 years and I've never dealt with this many 
overdoses in one week." Sgt. Joe Novak

WILKES-BARRE - A man who died of an apparent drug overdose Friday 
afternoon may have been using a tainted batch of heroin that's been 
blamed for more than 100 fatal overdoses nationwide in recent months, 
the county coroner said.

A rash of drug overdoses broke out across the city this week, 
according to police and medics, who reported five overdoses on Friday 
alone, one of which was fatal.

"I've been here 12 years and I've never dealt with this many 
overdoses in one week," said Wilkes-Barre police Sgt. Joe Novak.

Police would not release the name of the man who died Friday, and 
neither would Luzerne County Coroner Dr. John Consalvo, pending 
notification of the family.

Wilkes-Barre Fire Chief Jacob Lisman declined to give specific 
numbers, but he said the city has responded to an unusually high 
number of drug overdoses this week. One police officer said city 
medics have responded to approximately 15 overdoses in the past seven days.

City police and medics responded to the Citizens Bank Parkade next to 
Boscov's Department Store at around 3 p.m. Friday for a report of two 
men overdosing on heroin, Novak said.

A woman who was with the two men called 911, and when medics arrived 
one of the men was reacting badly, first struggling with medics and 
then falling in and out of consciousness, Novak said. Police were 
called in to assist and he was taken by ambulance to Wilkes-Barre 
General Hospital, where he later died.

Consalvo said he thinks the man was using a form of heroin laced with 
fentanyl, a legal painkiller that some experts say is 80 times more 
potent than morphine and can be fatal in large doses.

Fentanyl-laced heroin started turning up in major U.S. cities in 
April, and officials blamed the potent mix for dozens of deaths in 
Philadelphia, South Jersey and Delaware.

Consalvo said he won't be certain the heroin used in Friday's deadly 
overdose was fentanyl-laced until he gets the results of a toxicology 
test, which could take several weeks. The toxicology test Consalvo 
ordered is quantitative, he said, which will reveal each different 
narcotic in the man's system at the time of his death, including the 
amount of fentanyl. The tests done Friday on overdose patients by 
area hospitals, on the other hand, do not show specific substances 
such as fentanyl.

Consalvo added that the tests results will come too late to help 
inform anyone who chooses to shoot up in the coming weeks.

"The word should be out there that anyone who is engaging in 
recreational drug use should be very careful."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman