Schenectady issues alert on bad narcotics batch
Recent fatal overdoses prompt call from police to public to be wary
City police are warning about a potentially bad batch of narcotics that authorities suspect has killed four people within a week.
The specific substances remain unknown pending the result of toxicology tests, said city police Lt. Ryan Macherone.
But the string of fatal incidents has raised concerns for a city that has seen 220 nonfatal overdoses since last September.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had four fatal overdoses in a row,” Macherone said.
The overdoses were concentrated downtown, he said.
Whenever a rash of overdoses is fatal or nonfatal, the relationship between the city and its constellation of partners ramps up awareness of treatment and harm-prevention options, officials said.
The city is also better tracking overdoses, Macherone said, and will likely have a more complete data set by next year. Doing so will aid in harm-reduction efforts and allow stakeholders to better deploy resources.
The U.S. is ensnared in a sustained increase in fatal drug overdoses. More than 107,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control, a 15 percent increase from the previous record set the year before.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid once mostly associated with heroin and other opiates, is now appearing in cocaine and crack, surprising long-term users, said Laura Combs, executive director of the New Choices Recovery Center, a nonprofit licensed by the New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports.
Training people to administer Narcan, a prescription medicine that reverses opioid overdoses, is lifesaving, and the agency has recently conducted free sessions at Schenectady Pride and will facilitate additional training sessions at upcoming Juneteenth events.
One of the treatment facility’s contractors recently completed a session.
During a recent trip to the Adirondacks, the contractor was enjoying his morning coffee at a Stewart’s convenience store in North Creek when a man emerged from the bathroom,
turned blue and collapsed onto the floor.
The contractor administered a dose of Narcan nasal spray to the man in distress and it revived him.
“It took 15 minutes for the EMTS to arrive,” the contractor wrote to Combs in an email. “By the time they arrived, I had him conscious, breathing and highly agitated ... He was light-skinned and turned from bright red into a deep blue
then back-and-forth three or four times in 20 seconds.”
City police have provided links to a number of local drug treatment providers and harm-reduction services, including those that facilitate needle exchange and disseminate naloxone (the generic name for Narcan), the antioverdose antidote.
Combs sees the lifesaving episode as progress.
“If we can save someone’s life, the hope is always there that they want to do something different,” Combs said.