The notion snorting heroin carries less risk is risky business: drug court chief

When 17-year-old Eve Tarmey snorted heroin the night she died she very likely thought she was using heroin in a safer way than injecting the drug directly into her bloodstream.

That notion, however, is a myth, says Alex Casale, head of the Strafford County Drug Court.

"It doesn't matter how you do it," Casale said on Wednesday. "It's still the same (drug) concentration."

Tarmey, a Spaulding High senior, was found dead Oct. 17 inside a Rochester motel room she was sharing with her mom and her mom's boyfriend. Both have been charged in her death along with another woman.

What Tarmey snorted, however, was not heroin but either heroin mixed with fentanyl or fentanyl, alone. According to a coroner's report, she died of intense fentanyl poisoning.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 30 times more powerful than heroin.

The Lebanon Voice has also learned that last Saturday Lebanon Rescue was dispatched to a West Lebanon residence for the report of a heroin overdose. The victim, who had snorted the drug, was revived after first-responders administered two nasal does of Narcan, a known antidote to heroin and fentanyl overdoses.

Casale said it is well circulated among the heroin-using community and at training seminars he's attended that heroin users think snorting is a safer alternative to shooting up.

Casale said snorting is done by hardened users as well

"I've known hardened heroin users who normally snort it then they just start injecting," he said. "It just depends."

Eve Tarmey

Futuresofpalmbeach.com, a Florida treatment center, reports that a Forensic Science International study did find that while overdose risk of smoking or snorting heroin is lower (than injecting), both methods carry "considerable risk of lethal outcome."

Some reasons why users snort is to avoid diseases like HIV and hepatitis or to avoid having to explain needles marks

However, especially with potent fentanyl being used in heroin mixtures or alone, the overdose danger is far greater no matter the delivery method.

Whether addicts snort it or use needles, it doesn't change the potential lethal consequences, Casale said. It just changes the timeframe with which the opiate gets into their system.

Of course the faster way is shooting it up, said Casale, who is hoping the recent attention about the opioid epidemic will spur more who need help to attend a Recovery Day at Wentworth Douglass Hospital on Dec. 5.

Casale noted there are more resources than ever before to help addicts find the road to recovery, adding recent Medicaid expansion was allowing many to take advantage of both inpatient and outpatient programs.

The Recovery Day runs from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. in the Dover hospital's Conference Center.

The event will comprise prevention, treatment and recovery resources, a family support group meeting and free Narcan training and kits.