PRESCRIPTION FRAUD BOOMING

'It's Killing People,' State Narcotics Official Says

Prescription drug fraud could become an epidemic in Mississippi, an
official with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics says.

"It's a tremendous problem," said Frank Altieri, group supervisor for the
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit.

Once-rare prescription drug cases are now growing in the state, Altieri and
others say.

Altieri said the cases have always been there - but no one focused on them
because they were considered "victimless" crimes that hurt no one but the
perpetrator.

"We need to do something. It's killing people," Altieri said. "When was the
last time you heard of crack killing someone?"

At least eight people in the state in the last two years have died from
abusing prescription drugs, according to national Drug Enforcement
Administration statistics.

Those numbers include the November 2000 death of Mendenhall teen Jennifer
May, 15. May, a popular 10th-grader at Mendenhall High, was the first and
youngest person in the state to die of an OxyContin overdose.

Mendenhall resident Shad Edward Nichols was found guilty in December of
injecting May with the powerful prescription painkiller, marking the first
negligent manslaughter conviction in the nation involving OxyContin.

Those who abuse OxyContin and similar drugs usually crush the medicine and
then snort or inject it, producing a quick, heroinlike high, according to
drug enforcement officials

Prescription drug cases have supplanted crack cases before his court,
Circuit Judge Keith Starrett of McComb said of his south Mississippi court
district of Lincoln, Pike and Walthall counties.

"It's the worst drug problem we have," Starrett said. "I used to think
crack was the worst problem, but crack seems to be on the wane in my district."

Starrett and others see a growing problem in the state with prescription
drug abuse.

In 2001, 320 arrests were made in pharmaceutical cases in the state by the
four agents of the Bureau of Narcotics Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit. That
represents about 13 percent of the total of 2,438 drug arrests MBN made in
2001.

Those numbers don't include arrests by local or county law officers.

Mississippi ranks 13th in the nation in the legal distribution of
Hydrocodone and 34th for OxyContin, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration statistics. Hydrocodone and OxyContin are the two narcotic
painkillers most widely abused.

Altieri said the two pain killers or their derivatives are the most widely
abused in the state.

Altieri said the state's ranking in the legal distribution of Hydrocodone
and OxyContin is significant, because prescription drugs often are obtained
legally by a person with a valid doctor's prescription. Later, those same
people may try to obtain them illegally for either their own personal use
or for sale to others.

Hinds County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Studebaker said people
who are abusing prescription drugs often will steal blank prescriptions,
make their own fake prescription or even call a pharmacist pretending to be
a doctor. Some also go from doctor to doctor for the same problem to get
duplicate prescriptions.

Also, some doctors willingly help individuals abuse prescription drugs by
writing prescriptions when the patient doesn't need the medicine, she said.

"It is a problem," said Studebaker, who prosecutes drug cases for the
district attorney's office. "We have always had a fair number."

Starrett said he has seen cases from minors obtaining drugs through
fraudulent prescriptions to a woman in her 60s selling her cancer medication.

Starrett said he hasn't kept a record of exactly how many cases in his
court are drug-related, but that "20 to 30 percent of cases in my drug
court are because of some prescription drug violation," Starrett said.

Starrett said 44 people have graduated in his drug court program, which
began Feb. 1, 1999 for mostly first-time drug possession offenders. About
100 participants are in the drug court program now.

The court seeks treatment or incarceration for offenders charged with
possession of a controlled substance. Those selling drugs aren't eligible
for the program.

Starrett said forged prescriptions for the drug OxyContin are a problem in
his district and other court jurisdictions.

Some recent examples:

* In February, a Grenada doctor was arrested by the Mississippi Bureau of
Narcotics on a charge of forging a prescription for the powerful painkiller
OxyContin at a Jackson pharmacy. Joseph Samuel Mardis, 33, an internal
medicine specialist, allegedly wrote one prescription on a pad he stole
from another physician.

* In Hinds County, Joseph Pino, 37, pleaded guilty to altering a
prescription from the prescribed 35 tablets to 85 for the painkiller
Lorcet, a derivative of Hydrocodone. Pino faces sentencing May 20. The
maximum sentence is five years in prison and a $1,000 fine for altering a
prescription.

Doug Miller, assistant district attorney for Jefferson Davis, Lamar,
Lawrence, Marion and Pearl River counties, said he doesn't remember
prosecuting prescription fraud cases a few years ago.

But, he said, recently the district attorney's office has prosecuted
several OxyContin and other prescription drug cases. The Bureau of
Narcotics and a local task force aggressively pursue the cases, he said.
It's normally pharmacists who alert authorities to a fraudulent
prescription, Studebaker and Starrett said.

"It's a tremendous problem," said Buck Stevens, retiring executive director
of the Mississippi State Board of Pharmacy.

Stevens said the Board of Pharmacy has sent notices to pharmacists warning
that if they willfully fill a fraudulent prescription, the board will seek
action against them.

Stevens said he believes the solution to prescription drug fraud is
electronically filing prescriptions.

Doctors would transmit prescriptions to the patient's pharmacist of choice,
he said.