Holiday heroin warning issued by police | News

Over the holiday break, Rowan County law enforcement released a grim warning to users and friends and family of consumers of an already deadly drug.

A Facebook post from the Morehead Police Department on Christmas morning said that Morehead-Rowan County EMS crews had already responded to two overdoses in the county.

Rowan County Sheriff Matt Sparks said it appears there has been and still could be an even more deadly batch of heroin going around. He is urging area residents with family members who use or may be at risk to check on their welfare.

“If they have loved ones that they know are using heroin, to please try and contact them and dissuade them from using,” Sparks told the media after Christmas.

The batch of heroin is laced with fentanyl, carfentanyl, or something else that is making it more deadly than usual, deputies said.

Fentanyl, a Schedule II narcotic used mostly in end-of-life care, has been a leading factor in overdose deaths since 2015. It can be 50 times more potent than heroin while its analogues, such as Carfentanil, are usually even more potent.

The drug is frequently mixed with heroin or disguised as pills, making it difficult to gauge dosage and more likely to cause overdoses.

“Anytime we have a series of overdoses, anytime if we even have one overdose, we try to track that back to a particular dealer, so we can try to save people’s lives,” said Sparks.

Police are now saying there have been four overdoses connected to this particular batch, three in Rowan County and one in Fleming County, and one of those overdoses ended in death.

The sheriff said the reason he hopes family and friends will reach out to potential users is because the overdoses don’t sway a user from using. In fact, it does the opposite.

“Once an addict starts hearing about overdoses, a lot of times, instead of scaring that person away from heroin, they try to find the source, thinking it’s more potent product,” said Sparks.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control has stated that between 2016 and 2017, there was a 45.2 percent increase in deaths from powerful, addictive and deadly synthetic opioids like illegally manufactured versions of fentanyl.

The report also found that between 2013 and 2017, a period of just four years, drug overdoses increased in all but 15 states in the U.S.

Brad Stacy can be reached at bstacy@themoreheadnews.com or by telephone at 784-4116.