Blethen Maine Newspapers

Public health and public safety officials worry that a type of heroin blend that has led to hundreds of overdoses elsewhere in the country could become a serious problem in Maine.

State health officials issued an alert to health-care providers that heroin laced with the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl was found at the scene of a non-fatal overdose in Portland two months ago. The composition of the drug recently came to light after testing by a lab, and investigators are now trying to trace its origin.

"The mixture of fentanyl with heroin has resulted in hundreds of fatal and nonfatal overdoses across the country, especially in the Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia areas," Roy McKinney, director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, said Wednesday. "This is not only a public safety issue but a public health issue as well." Fentanyl is a synthetic painkiller 80 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. It is typically administered legitimately as a time-release painkiller absorbed through the skin from a patch prescribed by a physician. But drug agents elsewhere in the country and in other countries have found the drug being manufactured illicitly and mixed with heroin to make the drug more powerful.

The results have been fatal in many U.S. cities and that has health officials in Maine concerned.

"It has the potential to kill in clusters," said Ronnie Katz, coordinator of the substance abuse prevention program at Portland's Department of Health and Human Services. "That's usually how they find out about it, they get a group of people all of a sudden dying." The number of overdose deaths surged in Maine to 166 in 2002, 22 of them in Portland alone. The number of drug deaths then subsided but increased to their previous levels again in 2005. The number of overdose deaths has not increased significantly in Portland in recent years, though the most recent tally from 2006 is not yet available, Katz said.

"They haven't seen as many as they have in past years, but something like this could definitely create that situation again," she said. So far it appears the fentanyl-laced heroin was an isolated occurrence in Maine, in that it has not shown up beyond the three doses recovered Nov. 13 at the overdose scene. But Sgt. Scott Pelletier, MDEA supervisor in southern Maine, said most overdose scenes have been cleaned up by fearful accomplices before authorities arrive so there is often none of the drug left to test.

Also, the presence of fentanyl is not apparent in biological samples unless specifically tested for, so the drug may have played a role in overdoses and not been recognized, according to the federal National Drug Intelligence Center's drug threat assessment.

Including fentanyl in heroin would seem an illogical business move if it's so dangerous, but more powerful heroin can be a marketing tool for dealers and the increased potency also allows the drug to be diluted further, allowing for greater profit, Pelletier said.

In the case of the November overdose, the victim and the person she bought it from apparently did not know the drug was laced with the synthetic, Pelletier said. Investigators are still trying to identify the source. It appears the drug was brought into the state in bulk and then placed in small cellophane bags stamped with a smiling sun and a heart with the word "love."

Katz said people who suspect a person might be overdosing need to call 911 immediately. She also said counselors need to be available to those recovering from an overdose because such an event can prompt some people to quit.

The presence of such a dangerous drug in Maine ought to be cause for concern for everyone, she said.

"Addiction is an equal opportunity destroyer and one day it could hit home. It might be in your family, it might be in your circle of friends," she said.