Heroin Deaths

PHILADELPHIA -- In the wake of more than 400 deaths nationwide from heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl, some needle-exchange programs are giving addicts prescriptions for a drug to keep on hand to halt an overdose. The antidote -- naloxone, which is sold under the brand name Narcan -- can save the life of someone who might not call 911 for fear of prosecution, treatment providers say.

"If people have to rely on paramedics, more often than not, the overdose is going to be fatal, just because of the amount of time for people to get there," said Casey Cook, executive director of Prevention Point Philadelphia, a nonprofit that runs the city's needle-exchange program. The group recently began distributing naloxone prescriptions through a physician.

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Bad Breaks, Worse Choices, Few Regrets And A Relentless Undertow

They all remember their first guns.

Anthony Chisholm was 9 when he secretly played with his stepfather's pistol.

Jamil Thomas was 10 when an older boy let him hold a 9mm.

Raymond Ferguson was 11, his brother, 12, when they spotted a plastic shopping bag at a playground, with distinctive outlines.

Both boys knew what was inside.

Luis Cheverez at 13 burglarized a house, scoring a Glock.

At 14, Tyson Montgomery stole a .357-caliber snub-nosed revolver.

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Substance-Abuse Experts Eye Ways To Cut Drug's Lure

With a recent explosion of deaths and overdoses from fentanyl-laced heroin nationally, local and federal substance-abuse experts huddled in Philadelphia yesterday to plot ways to reduce demand for the deadly drug.

The doable: Law-enforcement authorities and health-care providers should share information to track the drug's sources, so police can snag the suppliers, experts urged.

The difficult: Victims should be automatically screened for fentanyl, despite the prohibitive costs and detection difficulties that have discouraged many coroners and doctors from routine screening, they exhorted.

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PHILADELPHIA - In the wake of more than 400 deaths nationwide from heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl, some needle exchange programs are giving addicts prescriptions for a drug to keep on hand to halt an overdose.

The antidote - naloxone, which is sold under the brand name Narcan - can save the life of someone who might not call 9-1-1 for fear of prosecution, treatment providers say.

Even if a user does call, help can arrive too late.

"If people have to rely on paramedics, more often than not, the overdose is going to be fatal, just because of the amount of time for people to get there," said Casey Cook, executive director of Prevention Point Philadelphia, a nonprofit that runs the city's needle exchange program. The group recently began distributing naloxone prescriptions through a physician.

Others say naloxone is best administered by trained paramedics and that the prescription approach might appear to condone drug use.

[end]

PHILADELPHIA -- After more than 400 deaths nationwide from heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl, some needle exchange programs are giving addicts prescriptions for a drug to keep on hand to halt an overdose.

The antidote - naloxone, which is sold under the brand name Narcan - can save the life of someone who might not call 911 for fear of prosecution, treatment providers say.

Even if a user does call, help can arrive too late.

"If people have to rely on paramedics, more often than not, the overdose is going to be fatal, just because of the amount of time for people to get there," said Casey Cook, executive director of Prevention Point Philadelphia, a nonprofit that runs the city's needle exchange program. The group recently began distributing naloxone prescriptions through a physician.

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After more than 400 overdose deaths nationwide from heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl, some needle-exchange programs are starting to give addicts prescriptions for a drug to keep on hand to counteract an overdose.

The antidote - naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan - can save the life of someone who might not call 911 for fear of prosecution, some treatment providers say.

But others say naloxone is best administered by trained paramedics and that distributing it by prescription might appear to condone drug use.

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Will a Crawford County judge just say 'yes' to a pot referendum? A 51-year-old Townville man is counting on it in his bid to make marijuana legal.

Charles E. Stiles Jr. said he has gathered 625 signatures in favor of a ballot initiative that would allow adults to grow and use cannabis. When Crawford County elections director Marlene Robertson declined to accept the petition on July 18, Stiles sued her.

"(We have) all these people who think we have a chance of maybe making pot legal, and if all I do is tell them 'Gee, I'm sorry,' they're going to be disappointed," Stiles said. "So of course I took it to the courts."

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CONEMAUGH TOWNSHIP - Police Chief Howard Jackson says that rural communities pose unique challenges to local departments as the ever-increasing cost of providing service threatens to outstrip what a tax base can afford for police.

"You have to think of expansion. The larger the department, the more services you can provide," Jackson says from the newly remodeled interview room of the township police department.

Jackson, an earnest-looking officer with black wire rimmed glasses and thinning black hair, looks more like an academic than a chief of police.

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To the Editor:

Something is missing at Penn. While students across the country are fueling a powerful grassroots movement to end America's longest war, Penn students have not yet joined the fight. As The Summer Pennsylvanian reported ("Student groups aim to lessen drug penalties," SP, 7/20/2006), Penn does not currently have a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the country's leading student organization working to end the War on Drugs.

Why should Penn students start an SSDP chapter? As members of the DARE generation, we realize that drug prohibition has done nothing to protect our nation's youth from drugs. In fact, like alcohol prohibition before it, these laws have only made the problem worse.

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Pennsylvania And Other States Incarcerate Too Many Low-Level Offenders

Sadly, America's first national prison commission in 30 years failed to tackle, head-on, our lock 'em up culture and to find ways to reduce the number of people behind bars in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The commission's recent report is little more than a how-to manual to help wardens cope with overcrowded prisons that breed violence, disease and recidivism. What we really need is a road map to drastically shrink Pennsylvania's prison population and, at the same time, save state taxpayers a lot of money.

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PHILADELPHIA -- Kali Ward is just glad she can finally go to slumber parties.

Now that she is out of foster care, the sociable 17-year-old no longer has to get a criminal background check on her friends' parents if she wants to sleep over.

"People make plans same day," said Kali, a cordless phone in one hand, an afternoon waffle in the other. "Background checks take weeks."

Under the legal guardianship of their grandmother, Kali and two of her siblings left such worries behind last year with help from a city program that focuses on moving children from foster care into permanent homes with grandparents or other relatives.

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BENSALEM, Pa. -- After an interstate investigation, a Dauphin County, Pa. grand jury recommended that 15 Breed outlaw motorcycle gang members be arrested for allegedly operating a major speed distribution ring, Pa. Attorney General Tom Corbett announced yesterday.

The large-scale, $11 million methamphetamine ring was allegedly being operated in Bucks and Philadelphia counties and New Jersey and was investigated under the name of "Operation Breed on a Wire," Corbett said.

"Today's arrests are the result of a continuing investigation into the distribution of meth in southeastern Pennsylvania centering around outlaw motorcycle gangs," Corbett said.

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BENSALEM, Pa. -- Fifteen men and women were arrested yesterday for their alleged roles in a multimillion-dollar crystal methamphetamine ring that authorities say was operated by the Breeds motorcycle gang in Bucks and Philadelphia counties and parts of New Jersey.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Bucks County District Attorney Diane Gibbons announced the arrests -- carried out by members of the attorney general's Bureau of Narcotics Investigation (BNI) and detectives from Bucks County and Philadelphia -- during a news conference yesterday.

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Geoffrey Dankovich's life ended May 28 in a hotel room in Fayette County. He was 27.

Hours before his death, Dankovich and a companion allegedly purchased patches infused with fentanyl, a powerful medication for chronic pain, from Jeffrey Moore, 43, of Redstone Township, a man he did not know.

Dankovich and his friend cut one patch in half and chewed the pieces to suck out the gel, which is designed to deliver the narcotic over a three-day period. Both also stuck a patch to their bodies, police said.

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In the wake of legal challenges to a statute that denies federal financial aid to students with drug convictions, groups across higher education are pressing for a reevaluation of universities' responses to marijuana-related offenses.

These groups, which range in name from Safer Alternatives for Enjoyable Recreation to Students for Sensible Drug Policy, have taken aim at the way in which colleges deal with students caught using marijuana.

The main criticism offered by these groups is directed at the fact that marijuana-related incidents often prompt police involvement and parental notification -- which doesn't happen at many of these schools for alcohol-related offenses. They also contend that alcohol and controlled substances should both be governed with the goal of preventing injury, not preventing use.

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Monroeville's mayor agrees with the police chief's plan to convert a juvenile officer position to a school resource officer position but still opposes the department's reduction of its community safety program.

Mayor James Lomeo said stationing a police officer full time at Gateway High School is good for the school district.

"But it doesn't solve the problem from our side. We still only have two police officers in the community safety division when, until April, we had three," he said.

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No Butts About It

Cigarette-smokers and marijuana-smokers may have nothing more in common than the occasional need to borrow matches, but they're on the same side in California today: the outside.

San Diego has just joined 35 other California cities with ordinances prohibiting anyone from lighting up on the beach. Aside from secondhand smoking concerns, they're fed up with butt litter. San Diego has nothing on San Francisco, of course. A year ago, the city by the bay adopted the most restrictive outdoor smoking ban anywhere in the United States. Violators are presumably put on public display, padlocked in stocks in Golden Gate Park.

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Death Grip

Drug deaths are outpacing homicides in Philadelphia, even as the bodies piled up during one of the city's deadliest weekends with 19 shot - six of them fatally.

The last drug overdose occurred on Friday when a 36-year-old man was dead on arrival at 5:03 p.m. at Temple University Hospital.

Early yesterday, Kareem Smith, 33, found shot once in the chest and lying between two parked cars in South Philadelphia, became the most recent homicide.

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What makes some mushrooms more psychedelic than others? Researchers at Johns Hopkins University think they know.

A plant alkaloid called psilocybin mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors and provides what the researchers called a "primary mystical experience" that may lead to overall positive changes in behavior.

While researchers hailed the discovery as a new way to approach hallucinogenic compounds, they cautioned that the chemical should not be handled lightly.

"Even in this study, where we greatly controlled conditions to minimize adverse effects, about a third of subjects reported significant fear, with some also reporting transient feelings of paranoia," said study leader Roland Griffiths of Hopkins. "Under unmonitored conditions, it's not hard to imagine those emotions escalating to panic and dangerous behavior."

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It's not hard to understand how something that reduces pain, induces euphoria and reinforces its own consumption could be addicting.

And that's just the problem with opiates, a group of drugs that convert into morphine in the brain and attach to receptors controlling those three very basic sensations.

"I don't know of any other drug that can do that," said Dr. Joan Coffin, a King's College psychology professor and neuroscientist. "People experience a dreamlike state. That's why a person who is addicted to an opiate is unaware of the horrendous surroundings they find themselves in."

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Illegal Drug Use

The Painkiller Is Suspected In Several Recent Deaths. Dr. John Consalvo Sees The Situation Getting Worse.

"If history is any predictor of the future, that trend will continue. As long as drugs are available people are going to take them." Dr. John Consalvo Luzerne County coroner

The drug isn't new, and it's actually legal for certain patients, but the latest ways to abuse the painkiller fentanyl - combined with the unawareness of users - has killed more than 100 people throughout the country.

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PEOPLE ARE dying from drug overdoses. That news has become so common that the reports tend to fade into the background for some people. It becomes wallpaper, just the tragedy of "other" people.

It's unfortunate that anyone would become so calloused that they would have no empathy for the deaths of people. And these aren't strangers; these victims represent a cross section of the people who live in Luzerne County. Yes, some might be transients, but many others are longtime residents who have jobs, homes and families. They are our neighbors; they are part of our community.

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WILKES-BARRE -- Four drug overdoses in one day have a local hospital official concerned that a bad batch of heroin has hit Northeastern Pennsylvania streets.

Two of those overdoses occurred simultaneously Friday around 3 p.m. in the Citizens Bank parking garage on South Franklin Street, according to witnesses. They were both taken to area hospitals.

Luzerne County Coroner Dr. Jack Consalvo said one of those overdoses was fatal.

Wilkes-Barre General Hospital treated three overdoses Friday and Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre treated one, hospital officials said.

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Overdose Despite 100 Deaths In This Region, Heroin Laced With Fentanyl Is Hot

Neighbors saw the guy bolting from the back of a graffiti-stained, abandoned house as he shouted the word that soon would ring out on drug corners across the country.

"Overdose."

Mercedes Perez, who lives a few doors down on this North Camden block, went to investigate.

In a junk-strewn lot teeming with flies and covered in broken glass, she found Samantha Bender, a young suburban mother, lying dead on her back, surrounded by empty blue bags of heroin.

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County Coroner Says Pain Killer Fentanyl Mix Is Probably Cause Of Luzerne Man's Death

WILKES-BARRE - Fentanyl is the new rat poison for heroin addicts.

Spicing up heroin with rat poison, strychnine or other chemicals has long been a practice of dealers seeking to attract customers looking for an even greater high. But sometimes the mix can be deadly - especially if the cut is fentanyl.

Daniel Dominick, 27, died Friday at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital after taking what was likely a fentanyl-heroin mix, according to Luzerne County Coroner's Office. The Luzerne man's death placed Wilkes-Barre on a growing list of cities where the deadly heroin concoction has been circulating in recent months.

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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.

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The Allegheny County Board of Health postponed a decision about whether to continue a controversial needle-exchange program and pledged to pass a smoking ban if the state does not.

A draft resolution to continue the needle exchange needs to be amended, Dr. Bruce Dixon, Allegheny County Health Department director, said.

The Board of Health declared a public emergency for HIV and hepatitis C in November 2001. That allowed the county to circumvent a state law prohibiting distribution of drug paraphernalia and allow Prevention Point Pittsburgh, a privately funded nonprofit, to set up the needle-exchange program four months later.

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A potent mix of heroin and fentanyl - which drew headlines last month by killing nine people in Allegheny County - continues to circulate in the region, police say.

"This is seriously dangerous stuff," said Special Agent Steven Robertson of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's headquarters in Washington. "Heroin is such an addictive drug that it doesn't seem to matter to some people that it could be mixed with fentanyl and kill them. They want that ultimate high."

That search for the ultimate high Monday led to the overdose of a 50-year-old man in Highland Park, who was revived by paramedics. Lab tests on the heroin used in the overdose will determine if it contained fentanyl -- a painkiller that experts believe is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

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The number of teenagers who are drivin drunk or with friends who are drunk is rising, according to survey of high-schoolers that is given each year

Other behaviors that have increased include physical fighting, damaging or destroying someone else's property and sniffing common household aerosol products to get high.

Use of hard drugs by Haverhill high-schoolers increased slightly, continuing a trend that began three years ago.

One in four teenagers said they had driven with a drunken driver in the month prior to when they completed the survey, and one in 10 said they had driven drunk themselves within 30 days of taking the survey.

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A potent mix of heroin and fentanyl -- which drew headlines last month by killing nine people in Allegheny County -- continues to circulate in the region, police said.

"This is seriously dangerous stuff," said Special Agent Steven Robertson of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's headquarters in Washington. "Heroin is such an addictive drug that it doesn't seem to matter to some people that it could be mixed with fentanyl and kill them. They want that ultimate high."

That search for the ultimate high Monday led to the overdose of a 50-year-old man in Highland Park, who was revived by paramedics. Lab tests on the heroin he used will determine whether it contained fentanyl, a painkiller experts believe is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

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It's right here in the United States of America.

It's right here in Delaware County.

It's called the drug war. And anyone will tell you, we're losing it.

Long after we pull out of Iraq, we'll still be fighting this one.

Currently, Delaware County officials are battling some bad batches of heroin. Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs are famous for a strong heroin market. And that's not something we should be proud of. We should also be aware that cocaine use is rampant.

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It Said The Chester-Based Operation Sold Heroin Fortified With The Lethal Painkiller Fentanyl

A drug task force has arrested three people suspected of distributing a deadly combination of heroin and a powerful painkiller, the FBI said yesterday.

U.S. Magistrate Jacob Hart ordered Louis "Bardo" Morales, Osvaldo "Valdi" Seda and Adam J. "Kekito" Torres-Ojeda held on charges of possessing and distributing heroin.

Assisted by Delaware County investigators and Chester police officers, the task force seized what agents called "a large quantity" of heroin in predawn raids Wednesday at Morales' home in the 900 block of Walnut Street and at Torres-Ojeda's home in 600 block of W. 9th Street, both in Chester.

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There's a war claiming casualties each week and it's not in Iraq.

It's right here in the United States of America.

It's right here in Delaware County.

It's called the drug war. And anyone will tell you, we're losing it.

Long after we pull out of Iraq, we'll still be fighting this one.

Currently, Delaware County officials are battling some bad batches of heroin. Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs are famous for a strong heroin market. And that's not something we should be proud of. We should also be aware that cocaine use is rampant.

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The Signs List Potential Sentences If Dealers Are Caught There

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - New signs are being posted in drug-free school zones all over Lancaster City and County, warning potential drug dealers of the consequences if they're caught.

The minimum jail sentence is two years in state prison and five years if the dealer has a gun.

The five-year sentence took effect last year, which is one of the reasons that Project Safe Neighborhoods wanted to get the word out.

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I'm writing about Robert Sharpe's thoughtful letter about the rash of heroin overdose deaths in the Pittsburgh area: "Heroin's harm"

I'd like to ask: Why do heroin and other illegal-drug deaths often make the front page, while deaths caused by tobacco rarely get mentioned even in the obituary notices?

Our annual tobacco-versus-all-illegal-drugs-combined kill ratio is about 23.5 to 1 (400,000 versus 17,000).

And the vast majority of our 17,000 deaths from illegal drugs are because the drugs are illegal. Because certain (politically selected) drugs like heroin are illegal, they are of unknown quality, unknown purity and unknown potency -- just like alcohol was when it was illegal.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]

The northern area of the county may be rural, but that doesn't mean it can't have problems with drugs, says Armstrong County Commissioner Rich Fink. "I get concerned when I read about people in my community involved in drugs," said Fink who lives in Madison Township. "When I see someone charged in connection with drugs coming up Route 28 from Pittsburgh.

"Are there drugs up here, is there addiction, deaths, are there drug deals, is there a possibility for meth labs going on? Absolutely," he said.

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Long-time marijuana users say the drug can make smokers stupid, which always seemed to me like silly, anti-drug hysteria. But after watching a group of kids smoke pot last weekend at Point State Park, I'm not so sure.

Breaking several of my middle-aged entertainment rules at once, I actually bothered to a.) leave the house on a week night, and b.) do so to attend a rock concert. After watching literally hundreds of bands during my 20s, I now tend to find the atmosphere, if you can call it that, at large concerts just slightly more bearable than a weekend with the in-laws.

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State, city and federal authorities have teamed to find the source of a strain that has killed about 70 people in the region since April. B

City, state and federal law enforcement and public health officials yesterday announced a joint regional effort to track the deaths attributed to painkiller-laced heroin and identify the suppliers of the drug.

Heroin mixed with fentanyl has caused about 70 deaths in the Philadelphia region and more than 200 overdoses nationwide since it was first spotted in April, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Meehan said.

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"Wit' or wit'out," the usual phrase to order a South Philly cheesesteak with or without onions, has taken on a deadly new meaning.

Drug dealers are using the expression to ask customers whether they want illicit heroin - or cocaine - with or without fentanyl, a synthetic opiate 40 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

"It's deadly. The push of a syringe is like pulling a trigger," said U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan, of the fatal drug mixture that has led to as many as 70 deaths and up to 220 overdoses in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area since April.

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City, state and federal law enforcement and public health officials on Tuesday announced a joint regional effort to track the ongoing deaths attributed to painkiller-laced heroin and identify the suppliers of the drug.

The fentanyl-laced heroin has caused about 70 deaths in the Philadelphia metropolitan region and more than 200 overdoses nationwide since it was first spotted in April, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Meehan said.

"The problem with fentanyl is that it's deadly," Meehan said. "The push of a syringe is like pulling the trigger."

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Drugs Destroy Modern Black Communities, PA NAACP Members Say

ALLENTOWN | The greatest civil rights issue facing modern day blacks is the destruction drugs are causing in their communities, eastern Pennsylvania NAACP leaders said at a Saturday meeting.

It is an issue they plan to bring to the attention of national NAACP leaders at their annual conference next month.

Back home, the local NAACP leaders said community members themselves have to fight the problem, especially with the involvement of black churches.

"We have to take back our communities," said Thomas Smith Jr., a Bethlehem Township resident who is president of NAACP's state conference. "When you bring drugs into my community, you're violating my civil rights and my family's."

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Police Worry Tainted Heroin Remains In Upper Dauphin

In the last two weeks in northern Dauphin County, four people apparently overdosed on what might have been tainted heroin, with two of them dying, police said.

One dealer bought 20 bags of heroin in Reading on Wednesday and sold it to users in the Lykens and Wiconisco area, police said.

On Thursday, a 41-year-old Lykens man bought three packets of the drug, snorted some of it, and died of an overdose minutes later, police said. Fourteen packets are unaccounted for, raising the possibility there could be more overdoses and deaths in the upper Dauphin area, police said.

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A third man was found dead and two more people were hospitalized yesterday in Camden County as a tainted batch of heroin continues to sicken and kill drug users across the area.

Pennsauken police found the 31-year-old man dead at the Riviera Motor Inn on Route 130 about 12:25 p.m. A heroin bag stamped Chemistry and crack cocaine were found in the room, according to Bill Shralow, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Authorities did not release the man's name because his family had not been notified. An autopsy is pending.

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CHESTER -- With as many as 14 possible cases of fentanyl-laced heroin overdoses under investigation, narcotics officers infiltrated an area of the city and arrested a suspected dealer within three hours Wednesday, authorities said.

No deaths have been reported in connection with the ongoing investigation, though two people who arrived at Crozer-Chester Medical Center on Tuesday remained on a ventilator Wednesday, according to city narcotics Sgt. Joseph Bail.

"This stuff gives new meaning to the idea of heroin being deadly," said Bail, who along with city Police Commissioner John Finnegan issued a stern warning to potential heroin customers.

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CHESTER - Two deaths may be linked to a rash of bad heroin that has sickened as many as 16 people and resulted in the arrest of 13 people since Monday.

Delaware County Medical Examiner Dr. Fredric N. Hellman said he would conduct two autopsies today on "two individuals where drug use is one of the potential considerations," though definitive test results could take weeks.

In the meantime, Chester Narcotics Sgt. Joseph Bail said on Thursday that investigators have found a more potent brand of bad heroin - which is heroin laced with fentanyl - in packages labeled "Takeover" for sale on city streets. "This stuff is more like fentanyl laced with heroin than the other way around," Bail said.

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The increase in fentanyl-laced heroin overdose deaths in Pittsburgh is cause for alarm ("Heroin overdoses leave 2 more dead in city, June 9).

Because heroin is sold via an unregulated illicit market, its quality and purity fluctuate tremendously. A user accustomed to low-quality heroin who unknowingly uses pure heroin will likely overdose.

The inevitable tough-on-drugs reaction to overdose deaths is a very real threat to public safety. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking and fuel crime.

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The latest shooting victim in Philadelphia is a little girl too young to truly appreciate what a gun is.

Police said the girl, 4, whose name was not released, was wounded in a shoot-out around 7:15 p.m. on the 2100 block of Sigel Street in South Philadelphia - a narrow street just south of Point Breeze that neighbors said is often saturated with youngsters playing outdoors.

The child was in critical condition last night at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with a gunshot wound to her left femur.

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Public health workers and researchers were among those who voiced concerns yesterday about regulations the Allegheny County Board of Health has proposed to oversee needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users.

Requiring exchangers to divulge their names, addresses and phone numbers and to disclose information about their HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C status will discourage use of the services, said Renee Cox, executive director of Prevention Point Pittsburgh.

The regulations also would prohibit users from giving clean syringes, needles and other equipment to others, a limitation that would further undermine the program's goal of preventing the spread of dangerous infectious diseases, she said.

Written comments about the regulations, which can be viewed at www.achd.com, may be sent until June 30 to the Allegheny County Board of Health, 3333 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh 15213; by e-mail to boh@achd.net; or by fax to 412-578-8325.

[end]

Thomas Schaefers seemed an unlikely drug kingpin.

At 48, the corporate chemist never had a traffic ticket nor problems with police, never had moved out of his parents' Aspinwall home and seldom left the house.

So his elderly mother was shocked when federal drug agents raided their home in December 1988, charging her son in what remains the Allegheny County's biggest epidemic of opiate deaths. At least 20 people died after using 3-methyl-fentanyl, commonly known as China White, some of whom thought they were injecting heroin.

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Thomas Schaefers seemed an unlikely drug kingpin.

The corporate chemist never had a traffic ticket or problems with police, never had moved out of his parents' Aspinwall home and seldom left the house.

So his elderly mother was shocked when federal drug agents raided their home in December 1988, charging her son, then in his 40s, in what remains Allegheny County's biggest epidemic of deaths from a single illegal source of the painkiller fentanyl. At least 20 people died after using 3-methyl-fentanyl, commonly known as China White, cooked up by Schaefers. Some victims thought they were injecting heroin.

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