Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : Drug That Killed 12 Used as Tranquilizer

Police said that the drug that killed 12 people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut over the weekend was a surgical tranquilizer called fentanyl and contained no heroin. New York City police displayed a one-dose packet of the drug labeled “Tango and Cash,” but said the department had not been able to make buys of the substance and declined to say where the packet had come from. Fentanyl, described as from 150 to 6,000 times more potent than morphine, resembles heroin and a heroin addict cannot immediately tell the difference, police said. Five people have died from the drug in New York, five more in New Jersey and two in Hartford, Conn., according to police. New Jersey police have arrested four dealers on charges of selling it.