Police on Cape Cod warned the public yesterday about a possibly lethal batch of heroin on the streets, after two deaths linked to the drug were reported hours apart in Falmouth and a third person was hospitalized after using it in Mashpee.
"It seems like more than just circumstance that two separate incidents around the same time involve heroin, so we're making the assumption it could be a lethal mixture," Falmouth Police Sergeant Jeff Smith said yesterday in a telephone interview. "Usually, you don't get three in one day."
Falmouth police said authorities do not know whether the deaths are connected to a high-potency drug that led federal officials to issue a heroin alert last year. The US Department of Health and Human Services warned healthcare providers that a powerful version of heroin cut with fentanyl had been circulating on the streets. Fentanyl, a pain-killer, is 50 times more powerful than straight heroin, according to a copy of the letter posted online. And the concoction was thought to have been the cause of a spike in overdose deaths in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago.
Autopsies are scheduled for both bodies on the Cape as part of the investigation, officials said.
The two victims were men ages 38 and 40, Smith said. The names of the victims were withheld pending the conclusion of the investigation, police said.
In one instance, a man collapsed in an undisclosed motel about noon. He was pronounced dead a short time later. In the second instance, the victim was found shortly before 2:30 p.m. in an East Falmouth home. Smith asked anyone with information to call Falmouth police at 508-457-2527.
Police in Mashpee did not return phone calls about the hospitalization of a person related to heroin use there.
Heroin has maintained a strong grip on New England, where for $5 or $6 for a small bag, it can be cheaper to buy than a six-pack of beer.
The drug and other opiates killed 544 people in Massachusetts in 2005, more than double the number felled by firearms.
To combat the trend, state health authorities plan to start supplying addicts next month with kits containing two doses of a medication called Narcan that can reverse a potentially lethal overdose within minutes.
State Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach has said the results of the Narcan program are so impressive that he wants to expand it to four areas of the state grappling with heroin epidemics.
According to the Cape Cod Times, the Cape's Barnstable County ranks fifth out of 14 counties in the state in opioid overdose deaths; between 2000 and 2004, 12 to 17 people a year died on Cape Cod from those overdoses. The state awarded Bristol and Barnstable counties a $1.8 million grant in 2006 because of the area's high rates of substance abuse.
Raymond Tamasi, chief executive officer of Gosnold on Cape Cod, which provides substance abuse and mental health services at facilities across the Cape and Southeastern Massachusetts, said some patients have reported using fentanyl-laced heroin in recent months, but the increase has not been significant.
Tamasi said another person who died from an overdose of heroin was found about a month and a half ago in a public restroom in Falmouth. He said it did not appear to be related to the heroin-fentanyl combination.
"It's always troubling to learn about drug-related deaths, especially when there are so many resources for them," he said of drug abusers.
Barnstable District Attorney Michael O'Keefe, reached by phone in Houston yesterday, said he had not heard about the deaths from police.
He said the investigations of drug-related deaths consume valuable resources.
"It's unfortunate when people choose to take illegal drugs, and it's unfortunate when they die," O'Keefe said yesterday in a phone interview. But "it's a result that can be expected from the use of those drugs."
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.
