FIGHT AGAINST OXYCONTIN BRINGS CONVICTION

Dale City Woman Pleads Guilty to Selling Prescription Painkiller From Her Home

Prince William County prosecutors won the region's first major
conviction for the illegal sale of the prescription painkiller
OxyContin yesterday, when a 39-year-old mother of two pleaded guilty
to selling the drug and other painkillers from her Dale City home.

Cindy Jean Harris admitted selling the drugs to undercover police
detectives out of her ramshackle home, and police testified that they
saw her teaching her 15-year-old son how to inject drugs. A videotape
played in court yesterday showed that Harris and her two children were
living in extreme squalor, with animal feces covering the floor.

Authorities said their seven-month investigation into Harris's drug
operation highlights the surging problem with OxyContin abuse across
the region. Detectives said Harris got local doctors to write her
numerous prescriptions for the drug and other potent painkillers such
as morphine, and she then abused or sold the drugs.

OxyContin, an FDA-approved pain remedy prescribed 6 million times last
year, recently has come under intense scrutiny as its abuse has been
widely documented. Medical officials in Southwest Virginia have blamed
abuse of the drug on 39 deaths in the past three years. The U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration has asked the drug's manufacturer to
consider limiting how it distributes and markets OxyContin as part of
its first national action plan for a prescription medication.

Court documents show that Harris received more than $ 36,000 from
Medicaid over the past year to pay for the drugs; she bought thousands
of doses of pain medications with little of her own cash.

Harris was convicted yesterday on seven drug charges and one charge of
recklessly endangering her teenage son.

"She became addicted to prescription drugs, and that is what led her
to where she is now," said William J. Schewe Jr., Harris's lawyer. "It
happened very quickly."

Federal and state officials said they believe Northern Virginia pain
clinics -- which Harris visited -- could be fueling the regional
OxyContin street market. Dennis H. Lee, commonwealth's attorney in
Tazewell County, Va., said abusers there have said they've gone to the
Washington area to make drug purchases.

"The case in Prince William points out that this drug, as potent as it
is, is too easy to access," said Attorney General Mark L. Earley (R),
who recently named Prince William Police Chief Charlie T. Deane to a
statewide OxyContin task force. "It is rapidly spreading, and it is
going to be showing up everywhere across the United States."

According to testimony in Prince William County Circuit Court, Harris
sold painkillers to undercover detectives numerous times. Along with
heroin, morphine and methadone, Harris was selling OxyContin pills and
a rare liquid form of the drug called OxyFAST.

Detective Greg Pass testified that Harris got her prescriptions from
doctors at the Dulles Pain Management Center in Sterling. Harris has
three herniated discs in her back, but prosecutors said yesterday that
the county jail has been treating the pain successfully with ibuprofen
- -- an over-the-counter pain reliever.

"We want the doctors and pharmacists to show the appropriate care and
to proceed with caution when dealing with this drug," said Assistant
Commonwealth's Attorney Sandra Sylvester. "We would like to think that
this case will send a message that we won't tolerate the illegal sale
of OxyContin."

Harris, who was arrested in January, will remain in the county jail
until her sentencing, which is scheduled for July 19. She could
receive up to 285 years in jail and a fine of $ 3.5 million, and
prosecutors said they will ask for "a substantial amount of jail time."