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Bluelighter
Tainted heroin proves to be fatal
Bob Wilson
WTHN.com
5.22.08
(WTNH) _ Tainted heroin is proving to be potentially fatal. Police have made arrests but the drug remains on the street, keeping cops and emergency rooms on alert.
There is a sense of urgency as Hartford officers work the streets, trying to find the source of the deadly drugs. Thursday, detectives were able to track the heroin to some low level drug dealers and seize some of the tainted drugs.
"We arrested two guys with the heroin, 60 bags and we found out that it's been laced with Alprazolam, which is a central nervous depressant. It shuts down the breathing system," Chief Daryl Roberts, of the Hartford Police Department, said.
And, it is deadly. So far, about a dozen people have turned up to the emergency room at Hartford Hospital over the last several days; one person has died.
"Folks who thought they were using their usual amount and type of heroin came in a severe coma," Dr. Michael Drescher said. "Some we were able to revive, some of which remain in a coma; on a breathing machine."
Several new cases have come in over the last 24 hours keeping the emergency room staff on high alert at Hartford Hospital. Doctors here think that it is contained to the South End of Hartford because they have checked with other hospitals around the state from Yale New Haven to St. Francis which tells police where to look.
"We have some really good leads and we are going to continue to do everything we can to get it off the street as soon as possible," Dr. Drescher said. "All we can say is that what people were using isn't what they thought they were using and there is something bad and something poisonous and toxic in what they were using."
For now police and doctors are working together, police are talking with patients who aren't in comas trying to track down the source and take it off the streets.
Link!
Bob Wilson
WTHN.com
5.22.08
(WTNH) _ Tainted heroin is proving to be potentially fatal. Police have made arrests but the drug remains on the street, keeping cops and emergency rooms on alert.
There is a sense of urgency as Hartford officers work the streets, trying to find the source of the deadly drugs. Thursday, detectives were able to track the heroin to some low level drug dealers and seize some of the tainted drugs.
"We arrested two guys with the heroin, 60 bags and we found out that it's been laced with Alprazolam, which is a central nervous depressant. It shuts down the breathing system," Chief Daryl Roberts, of the Hartford Police Department, said.
And, it is deadly. So far, about a dozen people have turned up to the emergency room at Hartford Hospital over the last several days; one person has died.
"Folks who thought they were using their usual amount and type of heroin came in a severe coma," Dr. Michael Drescher said. "Some we were able to revive, some of which remain in a coma; on a breathing machine."
Several new cases have come in over the last 24 hours keeping the emergency room staff on high alert at Hartford Hospital. Doctors here think that it is contained to the South End of Hartford because they have checked with other hospitals around the state from Yale New Haven to St. Francis which tells police where to look.
"We have some really good leads and we are going to continue to do everything we can to get it off the street as soon as possible," Dr. Drescher said. "All we can say is that what people were using isn't what they thought they were using and there is something bad and something poisonous and toxic in what they were using."
For now police and doctors are working together, police are talking with patients who aren't in comas trying to track down the source and take it off the streets.
Link!
