Joe Palazzolo, The Examiner
2007-05-11 07:00:00.0
Current rank: # 4,582 of 1,516

BALTIMORE -

On the street, it’s called “Cheese.” The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating a new drug cocktail — three parts anti-anxiety medication and two parts heroin — that surfaced in Howard County late last year.

The drug, which comes in capsule form, is a riff on a combination of Tylenol PM and heroin that has been attributed to at least 19 deaths in Dallas, said Garrison Courtney, DEA spokesman.

Howard police confiscated two gel capsules filled with ground Alprazolam — commonly known under the brand name Xanax — and heroin in December during a traffic stop, said Officer Jennifer Reidy, Howard police spokeswoman.

No capsules have turned up since, she said.

Police analyzed the substance and reported it the DEA, which published the findings in an intelligence bulletin in March.

The drug’s street name is as curious as its berth in Howard, but its appeal to users and sellers alike is clear, Courtney said.

“It’s drug dealers trying to open up a younger market. Pharmaceuticals are the second largest in terms of drug use. When you mix them with heroin, it doesn’t hold the same scary image of doing heroin by itself. A lot of kids now are really going toward this pharmaceutical craze,” Courtney said.

The capsules, also known as “starter heroin,” are meant to be ingested or snorted, he said.

“Marketing techniques are trying to make them more palatable,” Courtney said. “They eat them or swallow them with alcohol or soft drink.”

Experts warned that the drug was no safer for its ease of use.

“Adding Alprazolam enhances the respiratory depressant effects of heroin,” which could lead to asphyxiation, said Dr. Lawson Bernstein, a neurotoxicology expert and assistant professor of critical-care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

The anti-anxiety medication is not water soluble. If users inject it directly into the bloodstream, “they could end up getting a bunch of tiny blood clots,” Bernstein said.

Police arrested Kenneth Crawford, 55, of Aspenwood Way, after a K-9 sniffed out the capsules and two vials of cocaine in the car he was driving in December.

Reached by phone Thursday, Crawford said the capsules belonged to the car’s owner, a friend whom he would not name.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said.

Crawford was charged with two counts of possession of controlled dangerous substance, two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, speeding and having an open alcoholic container in the passenger side of his vehicle, Reidy said

He is due in Howard Circuit Court later this month.

jpalazzolo@baltimoreexaminer.com

How can police officers deter drug use? Respond below in our comments.