Monday, September 14, 2015
WARREN — After personally reviving one overdose victim and learning that four or five other people had also overdosed Friday and two had died Thursday, Lt. Greg Hoso felt a public warning was needed.
“I called the chief and I said ‘We need to do something,’” Hoso said this morning of contacting the news media to alert the public to the rash of overdoses that hit the city that day.
Hoso, commander of the Warren Police Department Street Crimes Unit, said one of the messages he wants the public to get is that the substance that caused the overdoses is a “pure white” powder.
“They think it’s heroin, but its much more potent. It’s stronger than they are used to,” Hoso said.
He doesn’t condone the use of heroin, he said, but, “If you’re going to use it, don’t use the pure white.”
The latest surge in Trumbull County overdose deaths has come during one of the most deadly years for overdose deaths in the county’s history.
Hoso said he doesn’t know what is in the substance that has caused this weekend’s overdoes and deaths. It will take several weeks for lab results to provide that information.
It’s also impossible to know whether the surge is likely to end soon. It depends on whether there is a large supply of the substance still available, he said.