A 20-year-old Gardnerville Ranchos man has been arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance, sales of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for sale.
Randy Isaacs is being held in Douglas County Jail on $110,000 bail.
Douglas County Sheriff's deputies responded to a medical assist call in the 1300 block of Petar Road in Gardnerville at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. They discovered paramedics attending to an unconscious 16-year-old male.
The initial investigation led officers to believe that the unconscious 16-year-old and three other male teenage friends, sixteen to seventeen years of age, had smoked what they had identified as opium late the previous evening.
Sixteen and a half hours later, his friends found the unconscious teen lying on the floor where he had earlier gone to sleep. The unconscious teen was eventually flown to Reno Renown Hospital. His current medical condition is unknown.
Officers developed information on the possible source of the illegal substance ingested by the youths.
At 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 12, 2007, officers from the Douglas County Sheriff's Street Enforcement Team made contact with Isaacs at his home in the 1300 block of Kimmerling Road in the Gardnerville Ranchos.
Although it has yet to be identified through evidentiary testing, the opium the juveniles thought they were ingesting was most likely a black tar heroin.
Local law enforcement has seen an increase in the use and possession of heroin.
"This tragic incident further highlights the dangers of ingesting controlled substances and should serve as a warning to other youth in the community contemplating the use of any illegal substances or abuse of any legal substances that one can never be certain as to exactly what chemicals had been used in the manufacture of such illegal substances or how these substances may affect the body and mind," Sgt. Tom Mezzetta said.
