Pubdate: Sun, 14 May 2006
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2006 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Brendan McCarthy
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

DRUG OVERDOSES LEAVE 1 DEAD, 21 IN HOSPITALS

A potent, heroinlike drug is being blamed for most of the 22 people 
who were sent to area hospitals Saturday in the latest rash of 
overdoses, Chicago officials said.

One person died of an overdose, said a Fire Department official, 
although it is unclear if that person used the heroinlike drug. Most 
of the overdoses were reported on the West Side.

At least nine medical emergency calls originated Saturday morning, 
all within about a one-mile radius in the Humboldt Park area and all 
within two hours, police and fire officials said.

Shortly before 10 a.m., police got a call reporting two alleged drug 
users stumbling from a garage behind a home on the 1100 block of 
North Springfield Avenue, said Chicago Police Lt. Diane O'Sullivan.

Around this time, Chicago Fire Department employees responded to 
reports of a nearby heroin overdose and saw several men running from 
the garage, officials said.

Inside the garage, authorities found three men in a drug-induced 
stupor needing medical attention, said John Harding, field officer 
for the Fire Department. The two-car garage was littered with about 
200 hypodermic needles, baggies of what appeared to be heroin, and 
tin foil, officials said.

"It was a shooting gallery, and it was used heavily," Harding said, 
referring to users injecting heroin. "This has been an ongoing 
problem for the last month. There's been clusters like this across the city."

Authorities believe the drug is a mixture of heroin and the 
prescription drug Fentanyl, a painkiller that, when mixed with 
heroin, magnifies the potency of straight heroin by about 100 times, 
Harding said.

Several residents of the Humboldt Park neighborhood said drug dealers 
give free samples in order to hook new users.

Police said they recovered drugs at the scene and have taken them in 
for testing. Three people were in custody Saturday afternoon, police 
said, but their role in the overdoses was not released. No charges 
had been filed by Saturday evening.

The incidents on Saturday follow a rash of heroin overdoses that 
swept across the West and South Sides recently. In a 24-hour period 
on the South Side last month, 25 people between ages 17 and 73 had 
overdosed, including a 51-year-old woman who died at her home.

Police said they are teaming with federal officials to disrupt the 
drug's flow into the city.
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