The most recently victim is a woman found dead when Cincinnati police and fire crews responded to the 1000 block of Winfield Avenue in West Price Hill about 4:30 a.m. Thursday, said Lt. Steve Saunders, police spokesman.
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A record high 47,055 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2014, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It has also underscored that this region does not have resources to treat all of people addicted to opioids, including heroin. The authorities believe heroin laced with carfentanil has caused nearly 90 overdoses in one OH county this week and about 60 in just two days across OH and in, though the cause hasn’t been confirmed.
Back in OH, police found out one heroin dealer was giving the poisonous mix of heroin and carfentanil away free. He said local, state and federal authorities are combining their forces to investigate the source or sources.
“We’re really going to be agile enough that we can address things that come up”, she said. Over in IN, near the OH border, there were 12 overdoses and one death during the same period on Tuesday, says Seymour Police Chief Bill Abbott. “I don’t know if they check to see what it’s laced with or if they just test to make sure it’s heroin, or what they do with it”.
A 22-year-old OH man is in federal custody in connection with a rash of heroin overdoses earlier this month in Huntington.
According to him, 100 grams “would kill thousands of people”.
Earlier this month, 27 people overdosed – one fatally – within a span of five hours in Huntington, West Virginia. A surveillance system alerts the public health department when an unusual number of drug-related emergency-room encounters occur.
State Supreme Court justices and other high-ranking officials are trying to coordinate efforts to battle the drug abuse epidemic at a judicial summit involving some of the hardest-hit USA states, with IN being one of them.
Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black added that authorities suspect the heroin has been mixed with another drug.
The current rash of overdoses has not been limited to Cincinnati.
Law enforcement officials assume the heroin was laced with carfentanil, a powerful synthetic opioid painkiller 10,000 times stronger than morphine. It’s occasionally used as an elephant tranquilizer.
The spike in overdoses is affecting children and families across Hamilton County.
When an officer doesn’t know if a person has overdosed on heroin, it’s OK to hit them with a dose or two of naloxone, said Dr. Erik Kochert, program director in York Hospital’s emergency room.
This extremely potent opioid may be in Jefferson County.
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Even if the patient didn’t overdose, naloxone won’t cause any harm. Similar spikes were reported in nearby OH cities Akron and Columbus.
