Warning: Deadly fentanyl on Tristate streets

As killer fentanyl snakes its way into communities across the country, deaths from the potent analgesic are growing in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

The Hamilton County Heroin Coalition on Friday urged community and law enforcement awareness of the powerful synthetic opiate that's sometimes mixed with heroin to enhance a user's euphoria.

Early counts of fentanyl-related deaths for roughly the first three-quarters of 2015 from both Hamilton County and Northern Kentucky illustrate the deadly results of the drug on the streets.

Hamilton County Public Health released preliminary numbers, cautioning they will change.

Hamilton County tallied 143 fentanyl-related deaths through Oct. 15 last year. That compares with 81 for all of 2014.

The county's fentanyl deaths already made up a significant part of Ohio's 502 fentanyl deaths that year.

The Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy count included some communities that had more fentanyl overdose deaths than heroin in 2015 so far. Statewide, fentanyl overdose deaths numbered 186 from January-September 2015; heroin without fentanyl numbered 218. Combined heroin/fentanyl overdose deaths tallied 54.

The early Northern Kentucky counties' results are as follows:

Boone: 13 heroin, 20 fentanyl, six of these from a mixture of the two drugs.

Campbell: 12 heroin, 15 fentanyl, with six from a mixture.

Kenton 38 heroin, 32 fentanyl, with 11 from a mixture.

Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan said fentanyl has proven far more difficult to override with naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug that can pull a victim into immediate withdrawal, restoring breathing.

"We're having trouble bringing people back when fentanyl's involved," Synan said. "Narcan (the brand of generic naloxone) doesn't work as well. It takes more ... so we're using more and more on one incident."

On a recent call in Anderson Township, he said, police sprayed naloxone into an overdose victim's nostrils more than once, and paramedics who arrived shortly afterward resorted to an intravenous delivery of the drug.

Hamilton County Commissioner Dennis Deters, who chairs the  anti-heroin coalition, said the rapid emergence of fentanyl illustrates the depth of the opioid and heroin epidemic in the region.

"Drug dealers are responding to the demand for heroin and taking advantage of people feeling this ... hell of addiction and giving them more," Deters said. "You need this super-charged opiate, fentanyl. We've reached the ceiling. This drug is killing people and we can't ignore this distinction."

Tim Ingram, Hamilton County health commissioner, said police can use a map of fentanyl overdose deaths so far counted to help with their work. It shows concentrations of deaths in generally low- to moderate-income, white neighborhoods. Among areas that stand out are the near West Side into the suburbs as well as Norwood, Downtown and Over-the-Rhine.

Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, said the deaths that Kentucky has seen are not from doctor-prescribed fentanyl, which is a drug for pain, including pain from cancer.

"It appears it's being manufactured overseas and shipped into this country," Ingram said."It is comparably priced as heroin, but it could be as much as 10 times stronger."

The Kentucky office did not have comparable fentanyl death numbers for 2014. The office saw a spike in fentanyl the last part of 2014 and started following it closely in 2015.

Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan said newer heroin users probably don't know the difference between heroin and fentanyl, but long-time users call it "white" because of its color.

"They'll say, 'It scares me.' Part of them knows they can die. They're playing Russian roulette, but they're drawn to it."