Concoction kills 3, sends 50 to hospital

BALTIMORE -- (AP) -- Three drug users died and more than 50 others were rushed to hospitals after taking a concoction they mistakenly thought was heroin, a police spokeswoman said Saturday.

The drug contained no heroin or cocaine, unlike a mixture that sent more than 100 to hospitals in Philadelphia last week.

Capsules found in the pockets of two of the Baltimore victims contained an anti-motion sickness drug, a cough suppressant and a cutting agent.

``It is a counterfeit drug,'' said police spokeswoman Ragina Cooper. ``It was like, in minutes after taking it, they were very dizzy and blacking out.''

She said most of the overdoses happened on the city's east side. Police scoured neighborhoods there Saturday without finding the source.

Deadly capsules

Most of the users had snorted the contents of the capsules, Cooper said. She said the mixture also can be injected or smoked.

When they reached hospital emergency rooms, most were either unconscious or semiconscious and incoherent. When doctors tried to help, they became agitated and violent, she said.

Cooper said the capsules contained a mix of scopolamine, an anti-motion sickness drug that can quicken the heart rate; dextromethorphan, a base commonly used in cough medicines that slows breathing; and quinine, used to cut or dilute the other ingredients.

Scopolamine and dextromethorphan also were found in the drug concoction involved in the Philadelphia outbreak. No one died in those cases.

Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore treated 12 people for overdoses Friday night. By 7 a.m. Saturday, the number had risen to 21, and two were dead, said spokeswoman Debbie Bangledorf. The third person died at Bayview Medical Center, Cooper said.

Philadelphia concoction

Philadelphia hospitals on Thursday were swamped with as many as 117 people who took a highly potent blend called ``Super Buick'' or ``Homicide,'' which contained cocaine, heroin, dextromethorphan, the vitamin thiamine and scopolamine, police said.

Eleven of the Philadelphia victims remained hospitalized in intensive care Saturday, a Temple University Hospital official said.

Silma Licette of Philadelphia, who has been an addict for nine years, said she accepted a free bag of the bad batch Thursday night, even though she knew it had made people sick.

``Usually, I need four bags just to get me out of bed in the morning, so one bag is nothing,'' said Licette, 26, gulping glass after glass of soda and complaining of seeing double and quadruple.

``But I didn't get the plunger halfway down and my legs got all crazy on me. You get this crazy shaking and weakness and a taste in your mouth,'' she said.

``My old man said I ripped off all my clothes, and he had to hold me down. I don't remember. I remember vomiting all night, though.''