SOUTHWESTERN VA. TOWN REQUIRES FINGERPRINTS FOR OXYCONTIN PRESCRIPTIONS

PULASKI, Va. - Six pharmacies will soon be able to ask customers wanting
the powerful painkiller OxyContin and some other narcotic drugs to provide
their fingerprints.

Police provided the fingerprint kits hoping to deter prescription
fraud. The invisible-ink prints will be kept at the pharmacy.

"If we take just one or two bad bottles off the street a month then we've
accomplished a lot," Detective Marshall Dowdy said.

Police and pharmacy officials plan to meet next week to determine when
pharmacists would require the fingerprints, police said Tuesday.

Hailed as a miracle painkiller for cancer and chronic-pain patients,
OxyContin is widely abused, especially in Appalachia. Ground-up pills are
snorted or injected, giving abusers a heroin-like high.

Since 1998, OxyContin and oxycodone, the narcotic's active ingredient, have
been linked to more than 100 deaths nationwide.

J. David Haddox, senior medical director for health policy at Purdue
Pharma, OxyContin's manufacturer in Stamford, Conn., said fingerprints
would be acceptable if applied to the purchase of all comparable drugs.

The fingerprint system, manufactured by CrimeBite, also is used by grocery
stores that cash payroll checks. Company president Lydia del Rossi said
Pulaski is the only town she knows of using it to help fight prescription
fraud.

"Once that fingerprint is there, it's hard to say you didn't do it," said
Leslie King, the pharmacist at a Pulaski supermarket. "I don't know if it
will cut down on people who are using it, but maybe it will make people
realize it is a felony."