‘Hot’ heroin has police concerned

Additive could be cause of area deaths

By: Cara Latham and Dick Brinster
   Heroin use is no longer about a junkie shooting up in a rat-infested city tenement.
   It’s here in your community and local law enforcement officials are concerned that it’s more deadly than ever.
   "There are heroin addicts in every town in Mercer County," said Lt. Bill Straniero, commander of the Special Investigations Unit of the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
   Worse yet, some of the already dangerous drug has been purposely tainted with a substance that makes it more potent.
   Law enforcement officials in Mercer County are worried about fentanyl-laced heroin and the possibility that it is involved in a recent surge of overdose deaths. Fentanyl is a pharmaceutical pain killer with an analgesic potency about 80 times that of morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
   "The potential dangers and health risks associated with heroin experimentation or use are well known," said East Windsor Police Chief William Spain. "These risks are compounded dramatically when fentanyl-laced heroin is involved.
   "The ingestion of trace amounts of fentanyl can be fatal."
   If one were to compare fentanyl to grains of salt, a user who is not a long-term heroin junkie would be able to handle maybe two of the little grains, Lt. Straniero said. They could possibly overdose from those two grains, but if they use "any more than that, they’re a goner," he added.
   Several toxicology reports are still being conducted in the suspected heroin-related deaths of about seven people in Mercer County in the past few months, according to Lt. Straniero. Because of that, he said he could not say whether fentanyl is involved in those cases.
   But he offered that "based on my experience, normally you don’t have this type of heroin overdoses that we’ve experienced through the end of July into August," he said. "You just don’t see those types of overdoses unless there’s something other than the heroin contributing to that. We’re guessing that something’s being put in with the heroin."
   In August, East Windsor resident Brian Landry,17, died in his home from what the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said was a suspected drug overdose. The area probe into whether fentanyl-laced heroin has contributed to local deaths is "certainly based upon all the overdoses," Lt. Straniero said when asked about the possible connection to the Landry case.
   "They are certainly within that parameter," he added. "We’re trying to find out what is actually killing these individuals."
   So many suspected heroin deaths is "unusual because as a heroin addict, you develop a tolerance over time," he said. "It can be a number of things," including the possibility that the heroin is much more potent, or that it’s being "cut" with something that is killing the users, he added.
   In Mercer County, heroin is known for its purity. While the national average is about 78 percent pure, the drug here is about 90 percent pure, according to figures released last November at the annual Mercer County Education and Law Enforcement Convocation.
   "It carries a greater chance for death or addiction, whether it contains fentanyl or not," Hightstown Police Detective Ben Miller said. "If the cutting agent is fentanyl, it’s even more deadly."
   And whether tainted or not, heroin is cheaper than it used to be in Mercer County, according to local law enforcement officials.
   "For $15, you can get an eight-hour high," said Detective Miller, who added that users generally don’t stop at one experiment. "People who are doing this are spending big money on it. That’s where you get other crimes associated with that activity."
   The price, Detective Miller said, is what has made local heroin use more popular in the last year-and-a-half or two years.
   "It’s a more potent high for the same amount of money as crack cocaine or powder cocaine," he said.
   Despite the dangerous effects, Lt. Straniero said, addicts seek the fentanyl-laced heroin because "they’re looking for that best high they can get. When they’re told that this stuff is hot heroin, they go and chase and look for this particular stamp (brand name).