PLAN DESIGNED TO CURB OXYCONTIN ABUSE
PULASKI PHARMACISTS COOL TO FINGERPRINTING

The police department has made CrimeBite fingerprinting kits
available to pharmacists, but there seems to be little interest.

A proposal to fingerprint OxyContin customers in Pulaski is making
little headway.

Several pharmacists and representatives from the Pulaski Police
Department met this week for a second time to discuss the feasibility
of fingerprinting customers with invisible ink before OxyContin
prescriptions are filled.

"Basically there wasn't a whole lot done" at Thursday's meeting, said
Eddie Hale, owner of Martin's Pharmacy in Pulaski. "It is now wait
and see."

The first meeting, in July, raised questions about who to fingerprint
and ended with a resolution for businesses to study the logistics of
fingerprinting and bring back the results.

The police department received CrimeBite fingerprinting kits earlier
this year and pharmacists can request kits. But there seems to be
little interest.

"As far as someone saying 'I would like a kit' ... no one has said
that they were going to start using it," Pulaski Police Chief Gary
Roche said.

OxyContin is a powerful prescription painkiller that has received
national publicity because of reports of its abuse in Southwest
Virginia and elsewhere. Pulaski County was one of the first
communities in Virginia to report a rise in property crimes and other
incidents related to OxyContin abuse.

Pulaski is also the first locality to offer the fingerprinting kits
to pharmacies to fight the problem.

Hale said he does not plan to fingerprint anyone at his pharmacy.

"The only time we would use it is when somebody came to pick up
something for somebody else and when we did not know them," he said,
noting that there have been only two instances in the past six months
when he would have considered fingerprinting a customer.

Of the six pharmacies in town, only two were represented at the
meeting - Martin's Pharmacy and Wal-Mart.

"We would have liked to have had everybody there," said Roche. But,
he said, many companies are still studying the plan.

Hale said pharmacists run into several problems with fingerprinting,
from offending customers to confidentiality issues.

"This draws attention," he said, because other people in the pharmacy
would know an OxyContin customer when the person was fingerprinted.

Roche did not want to comment on confidentiality issues other than to
say that "it is an issue that I believe will be resolved."

Hale said the issue will be brought to the Virginia Board of
Pharmacy. No one from the board was available for comment Friday.

The next step is to decide what pharmacists want to do, Roche said.
The police department is likely to meet with pharmacists again, but
no date has been set. Now, whether to fingerprint or not is being
left up to each pharmacy.

"Everybody would have to do it to be effective," Hale said.

And the police department will continue to work with pharmacists to
get this plan in action. "The mission of the agency is to form
partnerships with various entities within the community," Roche said.