The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 9

U.S. probes recent drug deaths in Drug deaths If fentanyl is confirmed in any of the deaths, officials probably will issue a public warning to addicts and users, according to an agent for the DEA. DRUGS, from 1-A Tracy Snell, of the Drug and Crime Clearinghouse in Rockville, Md. take it in the same dosage amounts as heroin, but it's many, many times more powerful," Snell said. Sam Billbrough, special agent in charge of DEA's Philadelphia office, said yesterday that his investigators were awaiting results of toxicologic cal studies taken during autopsies on the six Philadelphia victims by the city Medical Examiner's Office.

The DEA also will test any heroin seized by investigators to determine whether fentanyl is present and to track the trends of unusual drugs showing up in the city, said Mary Vaira, a DEA spokeswoman. "I hate to be part of contributing to a false scare, and I don't think we can be definite until we get these lab reports," Billbrough said, adding that the deaths could have been caused by cocaine or heroin alone. Billbrough said he did not know if the deaths were related to a batch of "designer" fentanyl that killed 17 addicts and left 200 hospitalized in and around New York City during the first week of February. Most of the heroin sold here comes from New York, Billbrough said. If fentanyl is confirmed in any of the deaths, Billbrough said, officials probably will issue a public warning to addicts and users.

Reading police attributed two drug-overdose deaths there on Feb. 17 to fentanyl. In Chester County, officials said they were investigating whether illegal forms of fentanyl were involved in two Coatesville overdose deaths this week. Montgomery County authorities said they, too, were checking whether fentanyl was involved ia the overdose death of an Upper Han-over Township woman, Stacey Crib-lear, last month. Friends and relatives of two of the Philadelphia victims said yesterday that they were aware of cocaine abuse by the two, but not heroin use.

A 32-year-old man who was hospitalized after using drugs with one of the victims said he and the victim bought two $10 "dime bags" of what they believed was cocaine at Mutter and Cambria Streets in Kensington. "I went into a coma after I did it," the man said in an interview from PHILADELPH Deaths in Coatesville, Reading and Montgomery County are also being investigated. Leroy B. Dolison, South Philadelphia Joseph Bremme, Frankford Donna Mueller, Northeast Wendell Yarborough, South Philadelphia f-j Robert Thomas, Lower Northeast Glendola Rucker, Southwest Philadelphia tlli IIP fg. it I if ex 1 1 -J .4 '1 Lv VS.

i- wmtytyMmmtymi)' 1 1 The his hospital bed. He asked that he and his friend not be identified. He said the drug triggered a fresh reaction. "There's some bad stuff going around," he said. "I almost died." In South Philadelphia, Catherine Yarborough said her husband, Wendell, 37, was found unconscious at 7 a.m.

Saturday by her brother in North Philadelphia. She said she knew her husband used crack cocaine, but not heroin. Yarborough said her brother described her husband's reaction to the drug: "He was running around in the living room," she said. "He told me Wendell was tearing up things." Wendell Yarborough died later. Some officials said the Philadelphia deaths did not necessarily point to an epidemic, because addicts die of overdoses almost daily.

In 1989, the latest year for which statistics are available, 208 people died of heroin overdoses in the greater Philadelphia area, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse. An additional 321 people died of cocaine overdoses that year. mm Friday, March 8, 1991 mmmmmm 9-A region "Six people dying of overdoses on a single weekend is not all that unusual," said Bill Thompson, director of programs for the city Coordinating Office for Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Thompson said his office had received no recent reports of unusual or potent heroin strains from nine methadone treatment centers, which treat about 2,300 recovering addicts. Herbert Kleber, a physician at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said fentanyl could be cheaply made by anyone with rudimentary knowledge of chemistry.

"It's generally produced by street chemists looking to make a quick buck" from heroin addicts unaccustomed to the more powerful synthetic version of the drug, Kleber said. Kleber said designer versions of fentanyl, a legal drug used in anesthesiology and surgery since the 1960s, were so powerful that a tiny difference in dosage could kill a user. He said the drug causes respiratory arrest, often instantly. '( Thomas J. Rosko, Bucks County coroner, said published comments by police officials that breathing or touching fentanyl can cause death were false.

Death is caused by injecting the drug, he said. City sources said six overdose deaths occurred over the weekend. Leroy B. Dolison, SO, of South Phila delphia, died at 5:07 p.m. Saturday at the Hospital of the University or Pennsylvania after he was found in a drug house, investigators said.

At 7:45 p.m. Saturday, Joseph Bremme, 42, was pronounced dead at Frankford Hospital, Southern Division. He was rushed there from his Frankford home. At 9:01 p.m., Donna Mueller, 39, was pronounced dead at John F. Kennedy Hospital.

She had been found in a bar in the Northeast. She lived over the bar, investigators said. Wendell Yarborough, of South Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at 9:50 a.m. Saturday in a relative's house. At 3:28 p.m., Robert Thomas, 39, of the Lower Northeast, was pro nounced dead at Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Police found him in a car on Roosevelt Boulevard. Two hours later, Glendola Rucker, 40, of Southwest Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at Osteopathic Hospital. She had been found in the bathroom of a bar at 52d Street and Lancaster Avenue. City Health Department officials did not return phone calls seeking information on the numbers of people in need of treatment for drug overdoses in recent days. The deaths here may be (the re sult of! a busy weekend," said Ihe DEAs Billbrough.

"Nevertheless, there could be something to it. We're trying to pin it down." Chester County District Attorney James P. MacElree 2d said James Tinson, 35, and Jeffrey Speetles, 35, died of an overdose of what authorities suspect was fentanyl. The two died within eight hours of each other. Coatesville Police Chief Den nis Alexander said police were await ing results of toxicology tests.

Inquirer correspondent Richard A. Op- pel Jr. contributed to this article. Group fights nomination of judge Associated Press MIAMI A coalition of 53 Florida labor unions, civil rights organizations and women's groups lodged for mal objections yesterday to a federal judge's nomination to a higher court. Opponents say U.S.

District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp has been insensitive in court to minorities, women, older people and blue-collar workers. President Bush nominated Rys kamp to the llth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin hearing testimony on the nomination March 19. Ryskamp, who became a federal judge in 1986 after 25 years in civil practice, has consistently refused to discuss his nomination to the llth Circuit bench in Atlanta or the oppo sition movement.

The Florida coalition said it sent a protest letter to Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that said Ryskamp "has shown that he views the civil rights laws as obstacles to employers, not as a necessary means to protect individuals from unlawful discrimination and harassment." Frank Jackalone, Florida coordina tor of the Alliance for Justice civil liberties group, charged that Ryskamp had shown courtroom "hostility towards women, minorities, senior citizens and working people." Besides attacking his court record on civil rights issues, opponents also question his membership at the Riviera Country Club, which once ex cluded minorities but which says it no longer does. The judge membership in a club the groups say still has no black or Jewish members "has amounted to endorsement of, or, at the very least, indifference to, its exclusionary policies," the letter said.

One U.S. senator from Florida, Re publican Connie Mack, endorsed Ryskamp after meeting with him last week. Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat, has taken no position. Tom Jipping of the Washington-based Coalitions for America, an umbrella group of about a dozen organizations supporting Ryskamp, dismissed the significance of the unified opposition yesterday.

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