WHY DO WE HAVE TO LET DRUGS TAKE ANOTHER LIFE?

To a grieving family, it must seem like too little, too
late.

Last week the Wisconsin State Journal reported that a man was
convicted of reckless homicide for buying the heroin that killed
19-year-old Sarah Stellner. In February, the drug dealer who sold the
OxyContin that killed Julie Zdeblick, 17, was sentenced to five years
in prison.

Can't we arrest these drug dealers before someone dies?

That's what Waunakee grandmother Arlene Schmitz was thinking when she
called Waunakee and Dane County authorities to report the person she
believes sold OxyContin to her daughter. On Monday, her daughter
checked in to the Huber Center to begin her sentence for driving under
the influence, leaving behind a 3-year-old in the custody of
relatives. The alleged dealer is still free.

"I thought police were here to protect the public," Schmitz said.

Schmitz said her daughter became addicted to the powerful narcotic
painkiller after she was injured in a car accident and a doctor
prescribed OxyContin.

Schmitz said her daughter also began buying pills from a woman who had
a prescription for the drug.

The daughter was arrested for driving under the influence of OxyContin
in January in Middleton, with her 3-year-old child in the car. She
was arrested again in March when she passed out in her car. In the
first case, Schmitz said her daughter was in a near coma, with
dangerously low blood pressure, and spent four days hospitalized in
intensive care.

"What's it going to take?" Schmitz asked, "a death?"

So why didn't police go after the dealer?

Detective Steve Wegner, of the Dane County Metro drug unit, was
blunt.

"If we lived in Russia, we wouldn't have to verify information, and we
could just go out and arrest people," he said. Wegner said the
daughter wasn't willing to give the kind of evidence that would stand
up in court. (Schmitz said her daughter did talk to police, but she
didn't want me to interview her daughter directly.)

"Pill cases are difficult," Wegner said, "because most people do have
prescriptions. If they're prescribed OxyContin, you have to prove they
took more than they were supposed to."

Wegner said OxyContin is a growing problem, and seems to have replaced
Ecstasy in popularity among teenagers.

"We're seeing a lot more of it in the Madison area," he said. "Kids I
see tell me they need it just to function. They pop a pill and go to
school. Without it, they go through massive withdrawal."

These cases are complicated. Police need witnesses who are willing to
go make undercover buys from the dealer, testify in court, or reliable
enough that they're able to make them into confidential informants.
Anyone who knows addicts knows that reliability isn't their best quality.

I don't think the police are wrong here, although I hope they keep an
eye on the alleged dealer.

But I sympathize with Schmitz. It's awful to watch addiction destroy
people you love. You'd do anything to save them.

And I hope that a year from now we're not writing a story about
another death and another dealer being arrested when it's too late.