Hollywood Heroin is Killing People Very, Very Quickly
BALDWIN: It is called Hollywood heroin. It is killing people very, very quickly. Eight people in the state of Massachusetts alone have died in just one week from the new strain of this drug. Police are still trying to figure out why it's so dangerous. Just over the weekend, police seized 9,000 bags of heroin with the Hollywood stamp and arrested four people. Let me bring in our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta who has been on this for some time now. So Sanjay, what is it about this strain of heroin that's so awful and deadly?</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are still trying to figure that out, Brooke. But the big concern here is that with certain heroin batches, people are actually cutting them with another drug. Drug known as</s>BALDWIN: So they get this powerful form of heroin and in some cases if you were to overdose and let's say the paramedics rushed to you and they are using this what, certain kind of drug that's saving people.</s>GUPTA: Yes. It's a drug called Narcan (ph) or</s>BALDWIN: So if we're talking about this particular strain of Hollywood heroin and the deaths specifically in Massachusetts, I mean, you have been reporting on this for so long the issue with the problems heroin nationwide. But with this, is this specifically problematic in New England or the northeast?</s>GUPTA: You know, it's a good question, Brooke. It's really problematic all over the country. And it is -- what's so scary about it and frightening is that many of the people who are heroin users now started off as addicts to pain pills. They may have gotten a pain pill prescription from their doctor, from their dentist, whoever, and overtime they become addicted to those pain pills. At some point they could no longer get the pain pills so they turned to heroin, which is the same active ingredients as narcotic pain pills. The thing about heroin is that you may not realize this, but it's cheaper and in many states more widely available than these prescription pain pills. So that's often the trend is they start addicted to pain pills and then turn to heroin. And I think one statistic said up to 80 percent of new heroin users started off with an addiction to pain pills.</s>BALDWIN: You have been look into it. We will look for more on your investigation tonight on the heroin epidemic in this country tonight on AC 360. Dr. Gupta, thank you very much. 8:00 eastern here on CNN. Coming up next, just in to us, the Republican Party now are revealing who will be delivering the response to President Obama's state of the union address next week. I think back to the recent past you had Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, who gets the nod this time? Also the White House really sort of trying to figure out how to thread the needle here. Why an execution in Saudi Arabia is truly straining ties with America's long-time ally.