By Kim Norris, Detroit Free Press
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Copyright 2006 P.G. Publishing Co.
CHICAGO — Just 125 micrograms — the equivalent of six grains of salt — is enough fentanyl to kill. Mix it with heroin or cocaine, and you have a high to die for — literally.
In Pittsburgh, heroin mixed with fentanyl is being marketed on the street under the name “get high or die tryin.’ ”
In metro Detroit, so far this year, 83 people have died trying.
In Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County, police this month have been investigating 48 overdoses — including eight fatalities — to determine if they are linked to fentanyl.
The seriousness of the spreading threat drew more than 125 law enforcement officials, scientists, public health officials and emergency first responders from seven cities and Mexico to Chicago on Wednesday and yesterday to learn about the potentially lethal painkiller and where it’s coming from. Even Scott Burns, deputy drug czar in the Bush administration, was on hand.
“This is a serious drug,” said Drug Enforcement Administration associate special agent Timothy Ogden. He held up a little plastic bag in which tiny particles of powder were barely visible. “This is enough fentanyl to kill you,” he said. “In my 30 years of drug enforcement work, I haven’t seen a threat that bothers me as much.”
Mr. Ogden likened the use of illegal drugs to playing Russian roulette with a single bullet. But with fentanyl, he said, “It’s like playing Russian roulette with six bullets in the gun.”
The fentanyl being mixed with street drugs most likely was manufactured in multiple clandestine labs, possibly in Mexico, Mr. Ogden said yesterday. This outbreak is more widespread than previous ones, he said. “It appears there may be independent distributors operating in different cities,” he added.
Chicago has had an explosion of drug overdose cases in the last two months, many in people taking heroin laced with fentanyl. The city has had 60 deaths in about a year.
Detroit experienced a similar increase, but in a much more concentrated period of time. And, unlike in Chicago, where people are surviving the overdoses, most of the known fentanyl cases in Detroit have been dead on arrival.
Fentanyl is a synthetically manufactured pain medication that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. In its legally prescribed form, it typically is administered through a patch, an oral lozenge or through injections. It often is prescribed to cancer patients.
Although the number of suspected drug deaths has fallen back to more normal levels in the past two weeks in metro Detroit, fentanyl-laced heroin has been popping up in more and more cities, with similar deadly results. And a lull does not indicate that the problem is past, authorities said.
“There’s always a concern when the drug is being manufactured that it can come back at any time, especially if it’s being manufactured in the states,” said James Tolbert, commander of the organized crime division for the Detroit Police Department, who attended the conference. “That’s why we’re cooperating with all our local folks and the people here, to try to determine where the source is.”
Post-Gazette staff writer Jonathan D. Silver contributed to this report.