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Ocean County officials thought they'd seen the worst in drug abuse when users moved in staggering numbers from commonly prescribed painkillers to the low-priced, taboo narcotic heroin.

Now those officials are finding they were mistaken.

Some drug dealers, ever enterprising and competitive, have recently begun cutting their heroin supply with Fentanyl, a highly powerful opiate that enhances the high to even deadlier levels than heroin alone, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

In response, all police departments will start carrying double doses of the opiate antidote in order to match the strength of a Fentanyl-related overdose, Prosecutor's Office spokesman Al Della Fave said. Some departments have already been supplied with the new kits, and any departments that place future orders will get the double-dose kits.

Since launching the Narcan program in April that equipped all police departments with the drug, 52 people in Ocean have been revived from an overdose by Narcan, also known by its generic name of naloxone, Della Fave said. He did not have information on how many of those overdoses involved Fentanyl.

"It's not like we're finding it every day, but it's definitely out there and it's definitely an issue," he said. "It's tough enough to deal with this issue as it is without having enterprising dealers starting to enhance their product with additional opiate(s)."

Fentanyl is not new to the area. Between 2005 and 2007, more than 1,000 people died by Fentanyl in five states, including New Jersey, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. But few people took notice then, said Dr. Steven Marcus, the executive director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System.

Now, with New Jersey in the grips of a suburban opiate abuse epidemic, of which Ocean County has become ground zero, heroin abuse has been declared the No. 1 public health crisis by officials.

"At least this time there are people paying attention to it," Marcus said.

The centers more recently observed a spike in drug overdose deaths in Rhode Island and determined that Fentanyl, which is between 50 and 100 times more powerful than morphine, accounted for 52 of the 165, or 31.5 percent, deaths between November 2013 and this March.

It is harder to gauge Fentanyl's reach in New Jersey because the state does not have a unified surveillance system to track drug overdoses, Marcus said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, State Police and local law enforcement all monitor drug overdoses separately, he said.

"You have a bunch of pieces," he said. "It's really difficult to get a handle on what's really going on."

Fentanyl was first reported in Ocean County in January, when a batch of heroin stamped with the "Bud Light" beer logo killed a 42-year-old man who overdosed in a supermarket bathroom and another man was found dead in his Seaside Heights home.

The narcotic is suspected to have resurfaced again at the end of June when a batch stamped with the cartoon "Hello Kitty" killed an 18-year-old man in Stafford.

It isn't just Fentanyl that is proving one dose of Narcan insufficient. Della Fave said it is also "for those who have partaken in multiple, multiple doses" of heroin. Della Fave said he's seen instances of users taking as many as 100 doses of heroin a day.

"In some of those cases, where you come upon a scene and they're really out and unresponsive, if you don't get any results within two to three minutes, they'll typically be given an additional dose," he said.

In Monmouth County, where police departments started carrying Narcan in June, there have been eight opiate overdose reversals.

"There has not been any Fentanyl in Monmouth County," Prosecutor's Office spokesman Charles Webster said.

But drug dealing is, after all, a moneymaking trade. And that's how Ocean County officials suspect the Fentanyl made its way there.

"Heroin now is a business and it's the one-upsmanship that has driven the purity levels from 12 percent to over 70 percent," Della Fave said. "And now I guess this is the natural next progression beyond purity, to enhance it with cutting agents as well."

He added: "That's why we weren't really quick to start pounding our chests about victory, because of that simple fact. Here we introduced the naloxone, and here they come now with Fentanyl."

Dustin Racioppi: 732-643-4028; dracioppi@app.com

NALOXONE DISTRIBUTION

The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office will hand out free kits of naloxone – single doses – to the first 100 families tonight at Preferred Behavioral Health's "Family Night." A training video and demonstration on administering naloxone will be presented. Dr. Raj Juneja will discuss the effects of naloxone and write prescriptions for families in need.

The Family Night is at 6 p.m. at Preferred Behavioral Health's office at 725 Airport Road in Lakewood.