Pubdate: Mon, 07 Apr 2014
Source: Business Courier (OH)
Copyright: 2014 American City Business Journals, Inc.
Contact:  http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4618
Author: Jim Hann

'KILLER HEROIN' EARNS ITS NAME IN BUTLER COUNTY

HAMILTON  -A deadly combination of heroin and a potent analgesic is
becoming more evident in the region as fatal overdoses rise.

Investigators say that some heroin sold on the streets is laced with
the narcotic fentanyl to make a dangerous cocktail known in other
parts of the nation as "killer heroin."

The Butler County Coroner's Office handled 50 fatal drug overdoses in
the first quarter of the year - a 139 percent increase from the same
period last year. Eleven of the fatal overdoses were from heroin, with
an additional 10 involving heroin spiked with fentanyl. Another eight
fatal overdoses were caused by fentanyl combined with something other
than heroin.

Butler County Coroner Lisa Mannix wasn't available Monday to elaborate
but issued a statement saying the toll of heroin and fentanyl deaths
could be greater. Toxicology tests are pending on the 21 other fatal
overdoses.

Fentanyl is a semi-synthetic opioid analgesic the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration classifies as a Schedule II narcotic,
meaning it has the second-highest potential for abuse, with use
potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence, or
death.

"Depending on who you talk to and what studies you look at, it is
between 50 and 100 times more potent than heroin," said Robert Goetz,
a pharmacist with the Drug and Poison Information Center at Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical Center. "The risks are pretty
straightforward. You are dealing with something a whole lot more potent."

In Northern Kentucky, the center of the region's heroin epidemic,
Covington Police Chief Spike Jones said there has been an increase in
the fentanyl seized on the streets. While he didn't have exact figures
on Monday, he said it is being used to spike heroin.

Officials with the Hamilton County Coroner's Office couldn't provide
accurate statistics on overdose deaths for the first quarter of the
year because the office still has toxicology reports pending as far
back as late January.

The Ohio Department of Health will release statewide overdose data for
2012 next week.

Heroin-related overdose deaths in Grant County increased to five
through March 12 this year from one such death for all of 2013,
according to coroner's reports. Statewide statistics are not yet
available for this year.

A Northern Kentucky Strike Force informant purchased what was
advertised as heroin in December from an accused dealer in the
affluent Northern Kentucky suburb of Crescent Springs. Investigators
were surprised in February when they received the results of a
crime-lab analysis. The substance purchased was fentanyl.

Northern Kentucky Strike Force Director Bill Mark said it was the
first time in recent years his undercover agents had encountered
fentanyl. He said the agents think the fentanyl came from drug gangs
in Cincinnati.

Fentanyl is typically prescribed in the form of a skin patch sold
under the brand name Duragesic. It is used to relieve moderate to
severe chronic pain when around-the-clock pain relief is needed for a
long period of time.

Authorities believe the fentanyl being mixed with heroin is being made
in clandestine labs, possibly located in Mexico. Drug dealers are not
using the pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl often given to cancer patients
in the form of patches.

Jones said that, for the first time, narcotics agents are seeing
dermal patches of fentanyl being sold illegally on the street to
heroin addicts desperate to get their fix any way possible.

Mark said the trend adds another danger to narcotic agents because
fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin. A Drug Enforcement
Administration bulletin issued in January warned local authorities to
"exercise extreme caution" when coming into contact with any heroin
because it could be laced with the skin-absorbing fentanyl.

This is not the first time fentanyl has contaminated the nation's
heroin supply. After a series of deaths in April 2006 in Camden, N.J.,
an epidemiologist realized the nation's heroin supply was
contaminated. The epidemiologist began looking closer at the Camden
deaths because the users died while snorting heroin.

It wasn't unusual to find a heroin addict dead with the needle still
in their arm but it was out of the ordinary to see a number of heroin
snorters to die of overdoses in a short period of time.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an
investigation in 2006 that found heroin laced with fentanyl killed
more than 100 people in January of that year, just in Detroit. The
"killer heroin" then disappeared only to reemerge in recent months as
the heroin epidemic grips the nation.  
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