2 PLEAD GUILTY IN OVERDOSE DEATHS

MURPHY -- The district attorney's office representing much of Western
North Carolina has twice won guilty pleas from people who provided
prescription painkillers to someone who then died of an overdose.

District Attorney Michael Bonfoey said he could not recall pursuing
any similar case in his district, which covers Haywood County and points west.

"We just decided to take a stand on that," he said. "I know these
people are taking it voluntarily, but still somebody (is) providing
them with illegal drugs."

Neither Amy Renee Graham, 26, nor Rebecca Grant Morrow, 34, will
serve time in prison for their unrelated crimes after each pleaded
guilty last week.

Judge J. Marlene Hyatt suspended their 16-month sentences and put
them on probation, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the deaths of 22-year-old Rikki Bianca Hayden and
29-year-old Jose Manuel Madrigal were similar.

Both tore open patches filled with the synthetic opiate fentanyl and
ate the gel intended to be absorbed through the skin over three days,
Assistant District Attorney Jason Smith said.

Madrigal used the patch prescribed to Morrow on Nov. 5, 2004. Morrow
said Madrigal, a relative, and three other uninvited visitors stole
it from her home.

"The people came to my house, they took my medication and something
bad happened," she said. "It wasn't my fault, but I got blamed for it."

She pleaded guilty, she said, to avoid a trial on her original charge
of second-degree murder.

State law provides for prison sentences of up to 32 years for people
who provide certain illegal drugs causing death. Bonfoey said he's
lobbying the General Assembly to lengthen that list of drugs.

In the other case, Smith said, Graham got the patch illegally from
someone else. She passed it to Hayden on April 1, 2005.

An opponent of U.S. drug laws said he has noticed a rise in
prosecutions for overdose deaths. The strategy has a "large potential
for miscarriage of justice," said Eric Sterling of the Criminal
Justice Policy Foundation, which supports regulating rather than
prohibiting drugs.

"We would be flabbergasted," he said, "if somebody were prosecuted
because he sold a gun to another person who modified the gun in such
a way that it exploded when he pulled the trigger."