TOWN'S OXYCONTIN BUYERS TO BE FINGERPRINTED

Pulaski Pharmacies Plan To Use Invisible-Ink System In Police-Led Battle
Against Abuse Of Painkiller.

Patients in the small southwest Virginia town of Pulaski will have to
provide fingerprints at the area's six pharmacies to get OxyContin as part
of a novel law enforcement effort to curb widespread abuse of the
prescription painkiller.

Pulaski police are planning to meet with pharmacists next week to show them
how to use a chemical fingerprinting system that employs invisible ink to
"sign" documents for authenticity. Patients will be asked to leave their
fingerprint signature on prescription papers so police can track cases of
fraud.

Police hope the technology, regularly used to prevent payroll fraud and for
cashing checks, will stem the increasing number of fake prescriptions for
OxyContin. Police will be able to use the fingerprints to ferret out
suspects and link them to illegal transactions.

The system is not used anywhere else for prescription drugs except
Louisiana, where doctors use it for several sensitive narcotics.

"Anything that will stop the flow onto the streets we'll be happy with,"
said Detective Marshall Dowdy of the Pulaski police. "This is a seemingly
never-ending battle."

OxyContin, which comes in a time-release pill and is similar to morphine,
has emerged as one of the most widely abused drugs throughout Appalachia.
It has been linked to at least 43 deaths in southwest Virginia since 1997
and has been blamed for significant rises in crime -- from fraud and theft
to violence and murder -- throughout the region.

Pain patients who rely on OxyContin for relief consider it a miracle drug,
but abusers are drawn to the pills' purity and availability. They crush the
pills and snort them or inject them for a euphoric, heroin-like high.

Purdue Pharma, the Stamford, Conn.-based manufacturer of OxyContin,
supports the fingerprinting as long as it is applied to all controlled
substances and is not limited to OxyContin. Company officials believe
singling out OxyContin will simply lead criminals to go to other pharmacies
or abuse other potent prescription drugs.

"Any identification technology that does not discriminate against patients
or stigmatize them will be a valuable aid to reduce prescription fraud and
aid law enforcement in their investigations," said J. David Haddox, senior
medical director for health policy at Purdue Pharma. "There's no question
in my mind that there are instances now where patients are being
under-treated or quite frankly don't have access to this drug when this
drug is what works best for them. And that's an absolute tragedy."

Pulaski officials said the fingerprinting would begin only with OxyContin
prescriptions, but could be expanded later.

To make the print, a patient swipes an index finger across a pad, picking
up an invisible chemical. The patient then places the same finger on a
treated paper sticker, which almost immediately displays a blue,
smudge-proof print. During investigations, police can scan the print and
compare it with local and national databases, as if it had been taken with ink.

Abuse of OxyContin has been creeping onto the streets of Northern Virginia
and has popped up in urban areas across the country. Northern New Jersey
and the Boston area have recently seen waves of abuse and crime related to
OxyContin, while Florida has experienced a steady rise.

Pulaski police said they had more than 1,800 drug-related crimes in the
first six months of the year -- almost one crime for every five people in
the town -- most of which were connected to OxyContin.

Dowdy, who came up with the idea after seeing a similar system for
validating checks at a local grocery store, said the fingerprinting won't
be an "end-all solution" to the problem but could make at least a small dent.

"It's horrible, and I don't know if it can get any worse here," Dowdy said.
"We're at least willing to try."