SANFORD — An 18- year-old woman was hospitalized following a suspected heroin overdose on Tuesday night, Sanford Police Chief Thomas Connolly said Wednesday.

Connolly said the woman was taken to Southern Maine Health Care in Sanford after police and emergency medical services responded to a call at a Thompson Street address for a report that the woman had snorted a drug, presumably heroin, and was unconscious and not breathing .

Connolly said there was one male witness to the incident, which occurred at about 9:30 p.m. As of Wednesday, Connolly said he believed the victim was doing well.

The woman’s name is not being released because of her victim status, and because she is not being charged at this time.

While Connolly said he believes the drug is heroin, he said it could also be fentanyl, a synthetic opioid drug often mixed with street-grade heroin that is up to 50 times more potent than heroin alone.

“They’re assuming it was heroin, but nowadays, nobody really knows if it could be heroin or fentanyl,” Connolly said. “My suspicion is that if you’re OD’ing from snorting, it could have been fentanyl.”

Connolly said snorting is a common method used by occasional users of heroin, and typically does not lead to an overdose as often as needle injections do.

However, Connolly said, as the epidemic of addiction continues to rise, so does the purity level of the drugs used to get high. This makes them more dangerous to all users.

“The purity level of the heroin here now is 50-60 percent, so you can snort it and, if you’re a new or occasional user, you can get away with doing (overdosing),” Connolly said. “Unfortunately, most people who are long-term users end up taking the intravenous route, because it is the most efficient way to get the drug into your system.”

Tuesday’s overdose is the seventh reported in Sanford over the past week. Six people overdosed on heroin during a 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday. One of the overdose victims, a 44-year-old man, died.

That man’s name has not been released by police. Connolly said police are still investigating the overdose cases, but also said it is difficult to pinpoint suspects given the nature of the drug-related incidents.

“We ask these people, ‘Who sold you the drugs? Who gave you the drugs? Who provided you the drugs?’ And 99.9 percent of the time, they either don’t know or don’t tell us,” Connolly said. “We’re not able to find out, because they just don’t cooperate.

“That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to try to find out and look, but it’s unlikely for (victims) to say, ‘Oh, well Joe Blow gave me the drugs.’”

Connolly said he is unsure if the latest overdose is connected to those on Friday and Saturday. He said it is “possible but unlikely” that the woman could have purchased the drugs from a common dealer.

To deal with the growing opioid epidemic in the city, Connolly has proposed a combination outpatient and prescription medication-assisted program to treat 30 opiate addicts in Sanford each year.

Connolly said he is working with Maine Behavioral Health to secure funding for a “brief intervention” program that would utilize intensive screening measures allowing addicts to see the problems in their own behaviors.

Applicants to the program would be required to attend nine weeks of intensive daily therapy in combination with prescription buprenorphine.

“It’s my belief most people want to stop using; they just don’t have the treatment to do so. All we have to do is get the funding in place and can start referring patients,” Connolly said. “Evidence shows that, when you do these short interventions in the field, people respond well to motivate them to stop using (drugs).”

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].