Prescription Drug Overdose Caused Fraternity Death of Santee Resident

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An accidental overdose of prescription medications killed a 20-year-old SDSU student, and Santee resident, who was following a party at a , the Medical Examiner's Office reported Thursday.

Barzeen Barzanji, a criminal-justice major who had planned to graduate from college next year, succumbed to acute intoxication from the painkiller oxycodone and alprazolam, an anxiety treatment marketed under the trade name Xanax, according to the county agency.

Barzanji was discovered unconscious and unresponsive in a bed at the Phi Kappa Theta house in the 5500 block of Aztec Walk on April 20, the morning after he went to a party there with a cousin. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

was not a member of that San Diego State fraternity house, but he was president of another one, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. The 2009 graduate worked as a waiter at a P.F. Chang's restaurant.

Following the fatality, the university put the Phi Kappa Theta chapter on suspension, limiting its guest privileges and many of its activities, and requiring it to remain fully drug- and alcohol-free.

Administrators lifted that restricted status this week, after an investigation found no evidence that the fraternity bore any responsibility for Barzanji's death, according to SDSU spokeswoman Gina Jacobs.

The revocation of the suspension was unrelated to the medical examiner's newly released toxicology findings in the case, Jacobs said.

-City News Service