Officials Seeking Source of Lethal Heroin Mixture

[Rose Siding]

The police and health authorities are struggling to track down the source of a doctored, intensely powerful heroin that has killed at least 130 people in and around Chicago and Detroit and sent hundreds more to hospitals in cities from St. Louis to Philadelphia.

In the labyrinthine and often paranoid world of illicit drugs, tales of killer heroin have come and gone before. But this time is different, law enforcement and health officials say.

The pattern of cases is broader, involving many markets at once, suggesting, they say, a larger and more sophisticated distribution network. The additive has been traced to laboratories in Mexico, which has traditionally supplied much of the Midwest heroin, raising fears that other hybrid pharmaceutical street drugs might emerge.

"The biggest new thing is the high mortality rate," said Dr. Carl Schmidt, the chief medical examiner for Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit and suburbs. The county has had more than 70 deaths since September related to the altered heroin mixture, Dr. Schmidt said, including those of three people found together in a car in April. The three were overcome so quickly that no one could get out to summon help.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/us/15heroin.html?hp&ex=1150344000&en=fe25dbc3f2d5fcf7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[kestrel91316]

1. Hmm...........wonder if some RWINGNUT has decided to take matters into

his/her own hands and get rid of some of the "welfare-cheating scum".

It would be right up their alley.

[creeker]

11. Read that a powerful(and cheap) painkiller is being added for the "kick"

[sofa king]

43. I wouldn't be surprised if it was ephedra or a derivative.

Having watched that episode of Frontline I get the impression that the ephedra market is so huge that it's looking to ooze into other markets.

[Tom Jefferson]

15. It could be the work of a "sick wing nut;" however,

these poor folks are committing suicide all by themselves.

[kestrel91316]

27. Well, if there is something hidden in it that potentiates it unbeknownst

to the consumer, one MIGHT construe that as assisted suicide at best and coldblooded murder at worst.

[Quantess]

31. I don't enjoy wearing a hard hat. Never wore one before, until now.

:tinfoilhat:

I am here to tell you that heroin kills.

Have you ever heard that heroin overdoses cause people to die? I'm sure you have.

I am challenging your statement. What is your response, please?

[Asgaya Dihi]

39. Don't know what his is, but I've got one ;)

Yes, heroin can kill. The way we deal with heroin kills many more than heroin itself would.

Here's a record of our death rates with the way we have been dealing with it based on the Centers for Disease Control, CDC Wonder System, for 1979 through 1998. http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/death/opiates.htm We've seen a climb from 367 deaths in 1979 to 2,947 yearly deaths by 1998.

Here's an alternative to the program that uses heroin itself as a maintenance tool. It's a small part of the program I linked in one of the first replies to this thread and intended only for current and hardcore addicts who don't respond to treatment. http://www.dpft.org/heroin.htm

As you can see by the link it ran over five years before this was written including passing a vote of confidence in the program with 70% support and in the full run of the program they had no heroin deaths. None, zero.

Yes, heroin can kill and it's no toy, but it's more often the unknown purity, contaminants, fear of asking for help if you do get into trouble, and other prohibition related factors that cause the actual deaths. Clean and regulated it doesn't so much. The vast majority of drug related deaths are avoidable and due to our policies more than to use itself.

[Quantess]

47. Don't Try Heroin!

To people wondering, maybe heroin is okay or cool or safe?

Just ask the dead people who did heroin.

If you want to chill out or something, drink a beer or smoke weed. Marijuana never killed anyone.
Do not do heroin.

(edited to make sure that I have sufficiently discouraged young people from trying nasty drugs such as heroin.)

[Asgaya Dihi]

48. Agreed

As I made clear by the death rates in the post it's no toy and it gets more dangerous every year. Death rates have done nothing but climb.

I don't see trying to limit the death and damage as encouraging use. The way it is in the US today the biggest thing separating your kids from a dose of heroin is a moment of curiosity on their part. Past that it's on the streets and sold by those who really don't care about anything but the profit.

If we took a look at the Swiss method they've had a steady decline in use over the term of their program with access only by current addicts and that in a medical setting. What kind of luck is a curious kid going to have there? What we have today is free use, ending it doesn't imply approval of use. It's a means to contain and control use. As the brief on the Lancet web page says "The harm reduction policy of Switzerland and its emphasis on the medicalisation of the heroin problem seems to have contributed to the image of heroin as unattractive for young people."

[RamboLiberal]

22. TV Station in Pittsburgh rightly pointed out this is a problem

in the "best of" communities.

<snip>

The overdoses have become a predominately suburban problem. In the city, people died of drug overdoses, while 122 died in suburban communities.

Penn Hills had the most overdoses – with eight, followed by Coraopolis and McKeesport with six each.

Bethel Park had five and Bridgeville, McKees Rocks, Monoreville and Shaler had four overdoses each.

“I get calls literally everyday from families. The best of families – Fox Chapel, Mt. Lebanon, Wexford area, and they say, ‘I don’t know how this could have happened to my kid,’ “ Capretto said.

http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_152215957.html

[Asgaya Dihi]

2. Such a waste

This whole policy has failed, the Swiss have seen a huge reduction on a program with more than 9,000 heroin users who underwent treatment. That was documented in the British medical journal the Lancet last week. Here's a quick article on it with a link to the Lancet article in it. We could save lives if we'd just open our minds and see what's working for others.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/439/swissresults.shtml

[High Plains]

3. Glad to see somebody reads the Drug War Chronicle

That's me. I write it from a mountainside in British Columbia. For now, anyway.

Edit: I'm working on a story about this for this week. Check it out on Friday http://www.stopthedrugwar.org

[Asgaya Dihi]

4. I thought you seemed familiar

I know a guy with a similar screen name on another board and thought that was it. I've read your stuff, Drug News Digest from MAP, and followed the programming from KPFT and Dean Becker for a few years now among other sources such as DPF Texas. You and MAP work together I'd assume? Seem to cover a lot of the same stuff so I figured shared resources.

I tried working with LEAP about a year ago, great guys who even offered to help me pay to go to the conference in California with them last year. I found I had been a loner too long though, got to be more a pain in the ass than it was worth for either of us so I do pretty much the same thing on my own these days. Great bunch of guys though, I can't think of any I'd rather work with.

[High Plains]

7. Yeah, that's me.

I work with Dean; I do the "Corrupt Cops" bit on his radio show most weeks.

While I know the guys from MAP, we don't work together. Rather, we're on sort of parallel tracks.

The LEAP people are really impressive. Nothing like having a cop tell you the drug war is fucked.

Glad to see you're hooked into DPF Texas; it's a good resource. I used to live in Austin in the 1980s. I never meant to leave, but such is life.

In my article tomorrow, I have harm reductionists laying into the cops, saying among other things that their enforcement activities destabilized drug markets and provided an opening for the fentanyl-laced smack. And they mention programs that might actually reduce ODs: opiate maintenance, safe injection sites, etc.

[darkstar]

44. Thanks Asgaya Dihi and High Plains

for the work you are working and the fight you are fighting.

Much serious respect,

darkstar

:hug:

[wordpix2]

51. yes, treatment programs are far better than the idiotic, expensive war on

drugs, which is just another stupid war we're losing.

[Acadia Blue]

5. Righties and fundies???

[zreosumgame]

6. similar to when Bush Sr introduced crack?

?

[sweetheart]

8. The drugs laws just murdered 130 people

Had those people access to safe regulated supplies, they would be alive now.

Supporting the drugs war status quo is nigh to negligent homicide. We are
ruled my murderers and terrorists in suits.

[pitohui]

18. well SOMETHING murdered 130 people

i seriously doubt it was fentanyl, a drug that makes life possible for a great many chronic pain victims, many who are older and i would presume more sensitive to overdose of opiates than professional heroin addicts

this whole story smells of the fish, if you ask me

there is something we are not being told

my guess is "undesirables" are deliberately being poisoned -- and not w. fentanyl

[Asgaya Dihi]

19. Might be right about deliberate but it seems to be fentanyl

In some cases at least. I got curious and wondered if you might be right about it being hysteria so went looking for a medical source. Found an article on the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists web page where they seemed to be trying to figure it out for themselves. The samples they ran into in the Maryland and New Jersey areas were mixtures of fentanyl and procaine with little heroin even in them.

My guess would be that one is just more potent than the other so you'd need less and the users had no way to know that. You might be right about someone trying to create hysteria though. Link to the article here.

http://www.ashp.org/news/ShowArticle.cfm?id=15076

edit typo

[sweetheart]

23. An unregulated market killed them

Fools are not regulating a market that is killing their own, and they don't even see it as negligence when the market fails.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

32. Fentanyl has a legitimate use.

However, it actually can be easier to overdose on than heroin. The fentanyl on the streets isn't being dosed in a time-release patch or lollypop. Even with the time-release doses, there is a way to freebase it and eliminate the time-release. This is potentially deadly even to a heroin addict. Fentanyl has been killing people on the streets for years. Now it's killing enough people that it's getting attention.

[Quantess]

34. Yes, thank you.

I was getting tired of reading asinine, conspiracy, heroin-tampering posts.

Heroin on its own is deadly. Heroin addicts don't care that they could die, and if an additive makes the high better, yet deadlier, they don't care if they might die. They just want the high.

(edited to make sense)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

35. Actually, I know a couple addicts that are scared of fentanyl.

Heroin addiction itself is a scary, scary thing. I can't even begin to comprehend it, but I know about 10 people that have died from it. I know two addicts who are still alive, have been in and out of rehabs, clean for a bit, et cetera. The fentanyl thing freaks them out. There are addicts that choose to take fentanyl. A lot of the ones that are getting killed or ODing on this stuff probably don't know fentanyl is in it. It's being sold as heroin, not fentanyl. The fentanyl/heroin mix makes it very easy to unwittingly overdose on what would have been a "safe" dose of heroin. Hopefully, the dealers will start stamping on this shit a bit more. Hell, they'll make more money on their investment and kill less customers.

This is why I feel we need to follow the Swiss example and provide registered addicts with a source of clean heroin. We also need a wide spread needle exchange program.

[Quantess]

36. That's interesting.

A good friend of mine died of a heroin overdose. He'd had a habit years earlier, then quit completely, but then a few years later tried it again at the same dose he had used before, which was too much for his body.

So this fentanyl sold as heroin, I'm thinking, is somewhat like Genetically Modified Organisms marketed as regular vegetables?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

37. Yeah kind of.

There are people who are seeking the fentanyl out, but there are a lot more people that are getting it mixed with their heroin unknowingly. I wish I could find the link to the article about the Swiss addicts program, but the numbers of users have greatly diminished since it was put into effect. This is an older article. There was a newer one on DU (I think) yesterday, but I can't find it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1727532.stm

[Asgaya Dihi]

40. There's two links on it you might be interested in

The Drug Policy Forum of Texas has a quick brief of the heroin aspect of the Swiss program at http://www.dpft.org/heroin.htm

The British medical journal The Lancet recently did an article on the program as a whole that covered over 9,000 users and included non-heroin maintenance aspects, you can get a quick overview of that article and a link to it at the following. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/439/swissresults.shtml

Hope that's what you were looking for.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

41. Yes, the second article is what I was referring to.

Thank you.

[Quantess]

46. "kind of" interesting

..that a really, really, good friend of mine died of heroin?

I graciously acknowledge that you have known several friends who died from heroin. So terrible, yet, you put it so lightly.

I once had a neighbor in San Francisco who died almost instantly when she took some "synthetic heroin", or some crap.

Heroin kills. No additives needed.

[cantstandbush]

9. "....pattern different.... Involving many markets at once..."

translated: It has reached some three-piece suits on Wall Street and some rural and suburban RWingers. Authorities will pay attention now.

[noonwitch]

10. This is almost epidemic proportions in Detroit

All of us social workers are concerned about our junkie clients that haven't checked in for a while.

I wonder how long it will take for the dealers to start stepping on it more, since they realize how potent the additive makes it. Maybe once they figure that part out of it, it will be less deadly. I figure that there's no way the cops will be able to track it all down and destroy it.

[genieroze]

12. Coming from Mexico, quick build more fences.

[zreosumgame]

13. the CIA will just fly it over

After all, dumbaya needs to make sure the Afghan crop reaches it's markets...

[genieroze]

14. BINGO!

Sung to BINGO
There was a pretzeldunce who had a country as his farm and Afghanistan was it's name oh.
SMACK, SMACK, SMACK, and Afghanistan was it's name oh.

[Tom Jefferson]

16. Most Afghan heroin supplies Europe. The US is supplied by Mexico

and Columbia.

http://www.agecon.ucdavis.edu/uploads/grad_papers/opium.pdf

[pitohui]

17. fentanyl is a valuable drug produced by big pharma to kill pain

i don't understand the thrust of this news article, it smells of propaganda, fentanyl is not some mysterious drug produced in some dark secret lab by mexican drug cartels, it is controlled but perfectly legally produced and sold in this country

i know older people who must use fentanyl patch at doctor's RX to control severe chronic pain

this is not a bad or evil drug and it isn't even killing old people, it makes their lives bearable, so i am not clear on why it would be killing heroin addicts, who i'm afraid have been guilty of stealing fentanyl for years in any case and yet not dying

i feel something else is going on, let's poison some junkie and while we're at it have another excuse to take away a drug that makes pain victim's lives bearable

i'm just sick, sick, sick of the attack on painkillers

opiate painkillers would be cheap and easily available -- if not for all the DEA bullcrap that seems designed to make pain victim's lives a misery and to drive them to suicide rather than bothering the insurance system by trying to get their pain dealt with

[High Plains]

21. Fentanyl can also be produced by non-Big Pharma chemists

and it can be diverted, like any other prescription pain reliever. It looks like it is being used to cut heroin, but it only makes it stronger.

I don't know what your problem understanding this is. People have started falling over dead from taking heroin that turned out to be laced with fentanyl. It's happening in New York and Philly, Maryland and Delaware, St. Louis, but most dramatically in Chicago and Detroit. There has been an upsurge in fentanyl-related deaths in recent weeks, but this lethal mix has been around since at least September, when the first deaths were reported.

[pitohui]

24. older people take fentanyl safely

that's my problem w. understanding the story, i thought i stated it pretty clearly

it is not a rare or unusual drug, it is a prescription drug that can be prescribed to older people who have used it safely to deal w. chronic pain

i'm afraid i need more than just internet say-so to believe something used safely for years by older people is so deadly to heroin addicts, who presumably have developed quite a tolerance to opiates ?

i just need an explanation that pretends to make a tiny bit of scientific or medical sense

it's hard enough to get proper treatment for chronic pain as it is

and as pointed out upstream, fentanyl has been diverted to addicts for years so why would it start suddenly killing in september?

i hope my question is clearer now?

i am sorry the junkies are dying, but you know what? they asked for their problems, chronic pain victims who are treated as criminals and sometimes denied pain medicine until they are begging to die did not ask for their problems, and i don't especially need to see fentanyl get any harder for pain victims to get than it already is

when you've heard some one begging in pain to be euthanized because the damn doctor won't prescribe sufficient pain medicine to deal w. pain of terminal stomach cancer -- you see, the doctor has to file w. DEA every time he prescribes so he can't prescribe "too much" -- it changes your perspective on the matter

there is nothing that is going to help me and mine live a pain-free healthy life in a whole "let's hate on fentanyl" scare

[pitohui]

25. okay, the related thread explains it to my satisfaction

these thieves are actually chewing on the patch and releasing all the fentanyl at once that they have stolen or they know damn well someone else has stolen from cancer patients

sorry, they are lowlife and my compassion doesn't go so far as to give one tiny damn for the folks killed by this "epidemic" of their own making

[High Plains]

29. There are two different phenomenon occurring

1. People chewing on the patch.

2. People thinking they're buying heroin when they're actually buying heroin cut with fentanyl, which makes the heroin stronger than they suspect, so they overdose and die.

[AngryAmish]

50. Older folks take fentanyl in patch and lollipops

Time release. Fentanyl is extremely powerful narcotic and when taken immediately depresses breathing so much that people suffocate. There are junkies all over the west side of Chicago dying with needles in their arm. These folks have been taking heroin for years but could not take the fentanyl/heroin mixture.

Fentanyl can also be used to suppress breathing during intubation (I think - not my field). This stuff is REALLY powerful.

[marjorieann]

28. Maybe

Mexico intended this for their own junkies. Wouldn't put it past them.

[High Plains]

30. Oh, that darned Mexico! That's a pretty silly statement.

Got a shred of proof for it?

[marjorieann]

42. I said MAYBE

And, why is it a silly statement? There are no Betty Ford clinics down here, when was the last time you were down here?

If you had been, have you noticed at the Ports of Entry - going back to the States - because of the upcoming election, old Hank Rohn (Mayor of TJ, undeniable connection to Money Laundering and Drug Dealing) has had everything freshly painted, even the Mexican side of the fence and guess what?

Usually there are hundreds of junkies laying in the dirt, they aren't there anymore.

Now, just recently Mexico proposed a total legalization of drugs, quite a surprise to everyone, and after some dealing, this was vetoed by Fox, although initially he said he would approve it.(Gee, could this have anything to do with "amnesty"??)

There were big questions, why didn't USA know about this before the annoucement, and why would Mexico make such a proposal in the first place.

From a law enforcement perspective, one theorum was that Mexico simply cannot support detention centers and jails to throw drug addicts in. Well, they can afford it, but they don't want to do it, just the same as they don't want to establish treatment centers.

I think it's a possibility, given Mexico's track record on caring for her own people, which she doesn't.

Given this atmosphere, why not? Afterall, remember when Brazil got rid of all the street kids...they just vanished. Oh, guess we don't talk about that anymore.

Life is brutal here, come on down and check it out.

And, evidence? Ha, you've got to be kidding, if I had it and were still alive, I would have handed it over to the NY Times.

Nothing surprises me anymore down here.

[Zhade]

45. Mexico did not propose a total legalization of drugs.

The decriminalization of tiny amounts of some drugs was proposed, then Fox changed his mind when the US thugs leaned on him.

[High Plains]

49. I didn't mean to be too harsh.

I guess I responded to your phrasing. "Mexico" did something? Or did you mean some drug trafficker in Mexico?

As far as I can tell, Mexican drug trafficking organizations are mainly oriented toward their primary market: the US. Yes, there is a growing drug problem in Mexico itself. Yes, there is lots and lots of narcomenudeo. But Mexican junkies are clearly a secondary market, so I think it's unlikely somebody is cooking up fentanyl for the Mexican domestic market.

It's been six months since I last left Mexico, but I have been going there for more than 20 years. I'm thinking I may spend this winter in Nuevo Laredo, just to check things out.

As for Fox's legalization proposal: It was actually a decriminalization proposal. It would have extended the protection given to "addicts" (you can avoid a conviction if you convince the judge you're an addict) to all drug users. And the decrim part wasn't Fox's; it was added in congressional committee. Fox's legislative package was designed to heighten the drug war by allowing state and local cops to get involved, so it is no surprise he vetoed the measure when the US press started freaking out over "Mexico legalizing drugs."

[LeahD]

53. You better think twice about Nuevo Laredo....might get caught

in the crossfire....drug wars, extremely high assassination rate, and people are fleeing for Laredo.

[Copperred]

20. THERE IS A CURE FOR OPIATE ADDICTION: IBOGAINE

IT'S NAME IS

IBOGAINE

[pitohui]

26. isn't ibogaine itself scheduled?

i have not kept up but wasn't ibogaine scheduled or going to be?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

33. It's been Schedule I since 1966.

Both Ibogaine and its source plant Tabernanthe iboga are Schedule I in the United States. This means they are illegal to manufacture, buy, possess, or distribute (sell, trade or give) without a DEA license. It has no recognized medical uses. However, there are enough studies which show that it seems to work in treatment of an assortment of addictions.

[Biernuts]

38. Rove is personally mixing it in his lab

[carolinalady]

52. Here in our small city of Wilmington, NC we have had 2 possibly

3 in the last two weeks die from the shit.