ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 27, 1996 TAG: 9605280064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Prosecutions for prescription fraud have tripled in Virginia in the past seven years, and they are at the heart of a closet drug war that has frustrated and perplexed legal and medical experts.
Overshadowed by street drugs such as cocaine and heroin, legal pharmaceuticals account for more than a quarter of all illicit drug use and are among the most pervasive forms of abuse in the suburbs, according to federal law enforcement officials.
``Pill addiction is the hardest withdrawal, harder than the other drugs,'' said Janieth K. Wise, medical director of Arlington Hospital's addiction treatment program. ``People do not come into treatment just because they want to get better. It's almost always because of fear'' of arrest.
But police departments have widely varying views on how to approach the problem. Since 1988, the Virginia State Police's prescription fraud unit has grown from four investigators to 12, and arrests have risen from 61 in 1988 to 183 last year.
The District of Columbia has no unit devoted to prescription fraud, and the Maryland State Police are disbanding theirs.
``We've gone from six investigators to four, and soon we're going down to one,'' said David Hammel, a Maryland State Police investigator. ``It's just shifting priorities. ... These cases aren't headline catchers.''
Prescription medicines can be stronger than street drugs, and hospital statistics show that abuse of legal drugs is a major problem, said Gene R. Haislip of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Nationally, 27 percent of all illegal drug use involves prescription drugs, including tranquilizers, painkillers and methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off that drug, according to emergency room data.
Prescription drug abuse may foreshadow other problems, said Hammel, who heads the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators.
``All of what we call street drugs today - heroin, cocaine, PCP - used to be prescription drugs,'' he said. ``I'm afraid that a lot of prescription drugs will be the street drugs of tomorrow.''
But others say prescription drug abuse was much worse in the 1970s, before law enforcement and medical officials tightened the rules for addictive substances.
``It's a crime whose time has kind of passed,'' said University of Toronto medical school professor Brian Goldman, who writes on the subject. ``Nobody says drug abuse doesn't exist, but there are far more important issues.''
Much of the debate about prescription fraud stems from the fact that it is so different from the street drug market. Prescription fakers tend to be individuals, rather than members of organized rings, and they are predominantly female, according to the DEA.
Buyers often become addicted after getting legal prescriptions. Recently, Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre announced he had become hooked on painkillers while recovering from surgery.
Catching offenders is particularly difficult because the illegal activity occurs in the midst of legitimate business, when pharmacists are busy filling orders.
Arrests often depend on a pharmacist's ``sixth sense'' that something is wrong, said Russ Fair, vice president of pharmacy operations for Giant Food Inc.
``They tell you too much, or they keep calling back to ask if their orders are ready,'' Fair said. ``We must have at least one arrest at our stores every week.''
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB