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Cincinnati Sees Spike in Heroin Overdoses

The head of the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition says that its task force is working with Cincinnati police.

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In Jennings County, a 52-year-old died after overdosing. “We’ve made some controlled buys, but that’s about it”.

“The Cincinnati Police Department is working to identify commonalities in the overdoses in an effort to determine the source of this risky drug now being circulated”.

Driver tells The Republic of Columbus the heroin was apparently laced with fentanyl or another unknown substance.

That was a crucial part of the public health warning Hamilton County released last month.

Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said at the time that all heroin is bad. Sheriff Jim Neil has thrown his support behind the move, and the two said that it’s a direct response to the crisis facing Greater Cincinnati.

Fentanyl is already entrenched here, Hamilton County Coroner Dr, Lakshmi Sammarco said.

Another concern for citizens of Cincinnati are the families being broken down by the risky drug. Dealers are replacing heroin with fentanyl analogs in their quest to expand their supply and give an addition to the drug.

“I think since carfentanil hit the black market in the region, it’s been something that we’ve all been saying, ‘God, I hope it never happens here, ‘” said Scott Gehring.

Boggs also pointed out it isn’t just the user that is in danger of ingesting the risky mixtures.

Since January, the Fairfield Fire Department has mailed out 20 packets of information, which includes a survey with a self addressed stamped envelope, to people they come in contact with that have suffered a drug overdose.

The drugs seem to coming into the area from Detroit via Chicago to Dayton, Ohio, Boggs said, as well as the I-75 corridor.

The spikes in overdoses might be much worse without naloxone, a now widely available overdose antidote that many first responders, such as firefighters, carry.

And in a 48-hour window this week, two counties near the Ohio-Indiana border may have been hit with a unsafe wave of it.

Officers have responded to six overdoses, Rice said, with local EMS taking most of the calls.

Seymour Police Chief Bill Abbott says police believe the people using the heroin overdosing after the drug was laced with powdered carfentanyl, which is a horse tranquilizer.

“There is no way for people using opiates to know what is in the drug until they put it in”, Abert says. “He was just laying there on the ground and I thought he was dead”.

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However, this was not the only case involving minors in the Cincinnati drug fiasco. You’re not permitted to kick in someone’s door just because they’ve had a large amount of traffic day in and day out.

OD threat rises as antidote fails to work first time