Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 26, 1990 TAG: 9003262081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COLUMBIA, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
"It's a pitiful sight," said Sgt. Raymond Lee, a narcotics investigator with the West Columbia Police Department. "They're so poor they're willing to take an aspirin and put up with the pain."
Five people were arrested in the case, police said Sunday.
Drug dealers befriended other patients who refused to sell their pills, called Dilaudid, and then stole the medicine from them, Lee said last week. Other times, relatives of patients stole the pills and sold them for about $25 each to the drug dealers, he said.
The patients usually are given Dilaudid to ease the suffering during their final days.
The dealers sold the tiny yellow pills to heroin addicts for about $40 each, Lee said. The addicts pound the pills into a powder, which they inject into their veins.
Police identified those arrested as Patty Carlini, 34, of West Columbia, Wanda Oree, 28, of West Columbia, and Karen C. Jackson, 34, Columbia. They were charged with distribution of a controlled substance, distribution within proximity of a school and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, police said.
The two others arrested were Nin B. Nissen, 39, of Columbia, and Ronald Burgess, 44, of Columbia, police said. The charges against them were not immediately known.
Most of the cancer patients were being treated at the Veterans Administration hospital there and got their pills free, said West Columbia Police Chief H.C. Salters.
"One cancer patient's profits would range up to $2,500 a month by selling the drug he had gotten from the VA hospital," Salters said.
The sick patients who sold the drugs weren't arrested, Lee said. But officials were investigating some patients who may have been deceiving doctors by saying they were sick to get drugs to sell.
by CNB