Potent Heroin Brings Chaos to Philadelphia Hospitals

PHILADELPHIA — A powerful heroin cocktail swamped hospital emergency rooms Friday with more than 100 violently delirious junkies, some needing four workers at a time to restrain them.

Police were rushing unconscious drug users from the streets where they had fallen Thursday night to area hospitals, where they had to be held down by straps, laundry workers and motor pool employees. One beleaguered hospital refused admissions for four hours. Another doctor said each addict who regained consciousness needed an average of four workers to be restrained.

“It’s was like the front lines in ‘Nam, like a MASH unit,” said a security guard at Episcopal Hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Yelling, bodies coming in by the minute, cars zooming up, dropping junkies and taking off.”

As of Friday evening, 116 addicts had been treated, and people were still lining up for a crack at the drug Friday.

“It’s a double-edge sword,” said Capt. Arthur Woody of the Police Department’s narcotics unit. “You want to warn people there’s danger out there, but then some come in droves because they want to try some of that ‘good stuff.’ ”

Dubbed “Super Buick” and “Homicide,” this batch was an odd and super-potent blend of cocaine, heroin, the cough suppressant dextromethorphan, the vitamin thiamine and the anti-motion sickness drug scopolamine, police said.

A similar batch caused concern in February, when 43 Philadelphia-area addicts were stricken. Later that month, four people died of overdoses.

The combination causes two contrary but equally dangerous reactions, said Dr. Larry Brilliant of Episcopal Hospital.

“They’re not breathing when they come in, with a faint and irregular heartbeat. But when we administer Narc-an [a heroin antidote], the scopolamine kicks in and they become wild,” Brilliant said.

Judging by how fast the casualties came in, Brilliant hypothesized that the heroin highball was a deliberately bad batch put on the street to ruin a local drug dealer.

“You have fights between drug lords, and sometimes one will try to poison the clients of another out of revenge,” he said.

Hospital workers feared a second wave of patients over the weekend, after drug users receive pay and welfare checks. Drugs and money were still exchanging hands Friday in North Philadelphia crack houses. Police have posted 50 additional officers in the area.