ANTI-DRUG SPEAKER BUSTED ON POT RAP

A self-proclaimed Narcotics Anonymous success story and motivational
speaker was busted by undercover cops after allegedly slipping out of
a weekend speaking engagement in Falmouth to pick up a massive pot
shipment, police say.

"He left the conference for the specific purpose of going to pick up
drugs," Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Gerald FitzGerald
said of Stephen Phillips.

Phillips, 46, of East Wareham, is a regular speaker at Narcotics
Anonymous events and spoke at a conference at the Seacrest Hotel in
Falmouth just hours before he was nabbed by undercover narcotics
agents, police say.

According to prosecutors, a Dartmouth parcel service called Phillips
to tell him he had a large package he needed to pick up. The company,
suspicious of the package, tipped off police, who searched it and
found that it contained 53 pounds of marijuana.

Phillips was arrested on drug trafficking charges about noon Saturday
after picking up the parcel. Police later searched his house and
recovered another 48 pounds of marijuana, FitzGerald said.

Phillips, who is free on $10,000 cash bail, is a well-known NA speaker
who says he's been clean for six years. His lecture Saturday was
called, "Prisoner of Your Own Mind: The Power of Money, Property and
Prestige." He was scheduled to speak at a New Jersey NA conference
next month.

NA Worldwide spokesman Steven Sigman called the incident "unfortunate"
and said most local chapters choose their own speakers without
national approval.

"It's not the norm, that's for sure," Sigman said. "It sounds like
this individual was not 100 percent in recovery."