Deaths blamed on drug’s return from U.S.-Mexican border
St. Charles Parish’s heroin overdoses could reach four with confirmation of the recent “double death” with two known users this year.
The parish Coroner’s Office confirmed two heroin overdose deaths have occurred since January, according to the parish Coroner’s Office. Toxicology test results are pending on another two Luling men in what Sheriff Greg Champagne called a “double-death overdose situation” that he called a first for him as a law enforcement officer.
Champagne issued a “heroin danger alert” on Nov. 4 to encourage the public to advise users to seek help, as well as inform them on skyrocketeting overdose deaths that were being blamed on Fentanyl-tainted heroin reported in metro areas nationally.
Although it could be up to five weeks before toxicology results determine whether the latest local heroin overdoses involved Fentanyl, Champagne said an investigation determined “the two obtained and injected heroin” that lead to their recent deaths and that they “were known drug abusers.”
The double deaths again cast attention on an increase in heroin use, dealing and overdoses in the parish, as well as Louisiana and the nation.
“The purity level is not like a prescription pill,” said Lt. Marlon Shuff, commander of special investigations in narcotics. “You buy a bag of heroin you don’t know the purity or that it could be cut with something like Fentanyl and it leads to an overdose. Opiates like heroin slow your heart rate and you basically stop breathing.”
If Fentanyl is confirmed in this batch of local heroin, it would be a significant finding. The drug is used in pain management and can be 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine and nearly 50 times more powerful than pure heroin.Shuff said this drug is one of several additives used to extend the heroin.
“We’ve heard of people cutting it with rat poison, anything to stretch the drug,” he said. “They don’t care about the user. They just care about making money.”
Just as alarming is parish numbers support an increase statewide and nationally in heroin from what law enforcement officials attribute to the combined effect of a 2008 crackdown on prescription drugs that drove addicts to cheaper, purer heroin from Mexico.
Shuff confirmed the drug overflow jumped in 2013. It started pouring into areas like New Orleans as a hub and then shot out into neighboring communities.
Heroin busts rising from 500 kilograms a year seized at the U.S.-Mexican border to more than 2,000 kilograms by 2013 indicates the severity of the problem, he said.
The situation is worsened by this drug’s addictive qualities being so severe that users actually seek out the drug dealer of customers overdosing on heroin, seeking out what they believe is a highly pure batch of the drug, Shuff said.The Centers for Disease Control Prevention or CDC reports heroin deaths nearly tripled since 2010.
Another indicator the problem may be increasing in the parish is the April arrest of Kenneth Harris charged with 2.5 ounces of heroin in his possession with intent to distribute, as well as increasing numbers in users and dealer arrests.
“An ounce dealer is a pretty good amount of heroin,” Shuff said. But then came Harris’ arrest, an accused mid-level dealer as opposed to the “ounce dealers’ historically reported in parish busts.
Shuff said many of the arrests are driven by citizen complaints that lead to investigations and, ultimately, arrests.
“I’ve been in this division 10 years and when I first started in narcotics investigations, heroin was pretty much nonexistent,” he said. “Now, it’s probably next to crack cocaine in what we deal with the most.”
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