A breakdown of the heroin-related overdose deaths in York County


In a wide-ranging town-hall-by-telephone conference on Tuesday night, state and local officials addressed Pennsylvania's heroin and opioid epidemic.

The unique forum featured York County Coroner Pam Gay and Detective Sgt. John Burkhart of the Lancaster County Drug Task Force. State Sen. Gene Yaw moderated the nearly two-hour talk, fielding questions from residents, many of them parents of people who are heroin addicts themselves.

Yaw, R-Lycoming, chairs the Center for Rural Pennsylvania and was joined on the call by the center's director, Barry Denk. The panel of experts took 16 questions from people who called in.

Here are some key takeaways.

Cartels are not in Central PA

There are no opium poppy fields in central Pennsylvania, Burkhart said.

"We've got to be able to stop it from its source," the Lancaster detective said. "In this area, it's Mexican heroin."

Burkhart said his department works with the Pennsylvania State Police and the Drug Enforcement Administration to target dealers. He said the heroin goes from the cartel level to higher-level dealers down to street levels in different cities. Those bigger dealers in the United States treat heroin as a business and rarely use the drug themselves.

But while heroin might come from the cartels, that doesn't mean the cartels are in the region, Burkhart later clarified.

He said there might be one or two gang members but the organization does not have a full operation set up locally.

Naloxone training

Naloxone, a drug used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, has become widely available. Some worry about its use, saying it enables drug users. But Gay said without it there would be many more overdose deaths.

While debate might continue, there are ways for residents to learn how to administer a dose.

Visit or the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs to see online training.

Why do dealers put fentanyl in heroin?

The caller who asked that question told the panel that she had only recently lost her son to a heroin-related overdose. He was in Philadelphia. The family learned that he went to buy drugs from a part of north Philadelphia where heroin is prevalent.

She thought she already knew the answer to her question about Fentanyl — a synthetic painkiller that is being found more and more in heroin — but wanted to hear what the experts had to say.

Burkhart's answer: "It’s a cheap cutting agent. It's another drug, another opioid that will make their substance wanted more than other dealers'."

He went on to say that many times dealers from Lancaster go to north Philadelphia to buy heroin in bulk. Often, it's already packaged and stamped so the Lancaster dealer won't know what he or she is getting.

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