EVERYONE'S OUT TO SCORE OXY

Everyone's out to score oxy. Prescription painkillers are at the heart of a
crime wave in Windsor that authorities say is responsible for at least two
murders and a doubling of residential break-ins in the past two years.

Prescription narcotics such as Percodan, Dilaudid and OxyContin- a drug
about eight times more potent than morphine and known on the street as
"hillbilly heroin" - have become the new highs of choice for heavy abusers,
authorities say.

They're cheaper and easier to acquire than heroin or cocaine, their quality
is assured - and they're just as dangerously addictive.

"We see as many of these cases now as we do crack cocaine cases," said
Windsor-Essex federal prosecutor Richard Pollock. "There is a connection
between the high rate of break and enters in Windsor and Essex County and
drug abuse."

Windsor police responded to an average of almost 10 reported home or
business break and enters every day through the first six months of the
year. At a monthly average of 263 reported break-ins, Windsor is on course
for 3,000 B&Es this year - a 70-per-cent increase over the 10-year average.

For most local addicts, said Pollock, "the only way you can feed your habit
is by selling the drugs or (committing) property crimes."

Homes, businesses and parked vehicles are easy targets.

"More people are taking pills than ever - for some reason we've been
running into a lot of oxycodone," said Sgt. Kevin Trudell of the Windsor
police drug squad, referring to the opiate from which OxyContin and
Percocet are made. "We're seeing more and more of it, and I assume it'll
get a lot worse ... because it's cheap."

A Dilaudid No. 4 tablet, the preferred street hit, can be bought for as
little as $30, compared to $100 to $150 for a gram of cocaine.

"Users don't say 'I'm gonna save till I can afford coke.' They say: 'I
wanna get high now,' " said Trudell.

The "dramatic rise" in prescription painkillers comes as trafficking in
more traditional narcotics such as crack remains relatively constant, said
Insp. Greg Renaud, who oversees the department's street crimes and special
services branches.

The New Year's Eve slayings of Skyler Rabideau, 8, and his father Randy,
53, were directly related to Randy's trafficking in painkillers.

Joseph St. Onge, 38, pleaded guilty July 15 to two counts of second-degree
murder. Assistant Crown attorney Randy Semeniuk told a Superior Court
justice that Rabideau sold Dilaudid, Percodan and other prescription drugs
out of the west-side home he shared with his son.

Semeniuk said Randy Rabideau was stabbed to death after he enraged St. Onge
by cutting off the addict's supply of pills. St. Onge, who murdered Skyler
after he witnessed his father's killing, will be sentenced Sept. 27.

St. Onge's history of drug abuse was highlighted at his sentencing in 1999
for participating earlier that year in an armed robbery at the downtown
Hospital Employees Credit Union. St. Onge, who grew up in the Curry Avenue
neighbourhood west of downtown, was sentenced that time to 3 1/2 years in jail.

"They were all addicted to medically prescribed drugs, particularly
Dilaudid," said Bob DiPietro, St. Onge's defence lawyer.

After one of St. Onge's credit union accomplices, Michael Henderson, 51,
killed himself in his cell at the Windsor Jail in July 2001, DiPietro told
a hearing into his death that Henderson had been battling severe heroin
addiction and that the trio's "only motive" for the robbery was scoring
money for drugs.

"I know the people they're arresting," said DiPietro. "There's no doubt in
my mind at all - the high frequency of B&Es in Windsor is directly related
to people's needs to feed their drug addiction."

Users belong to what DiPietro has described as a growing "subculture" that
knows where and how to get the drugs. They identify doctors and pharmacies
they consider easy targets and share information on the Internet.

The black market is fed by a number of sources, including falsified
prescriptions on blank pads stolen from doctors' offices, and break-ins at
the homes of cancer patients for whom oxy was first developed.

In at least one case, said Pollock, an unscrupulous relative continued to
fill the prescriptions of a loved one who died of cancer.

"I've seen doctors who have improperly prescribed these drugs, either
intentionally for their own profit, or because they've been intimidated ...
or bamboozled by someone claiming pain," said Pollock.

Police on the trail of an armed robber uncovered another local death
believed related to illicit painkillers when they executed a search warrant
in Kingsville in February.

The OPP Western Region Crime Unit discovered the body of a 28-year-old man.
Also found was a large quantity of prescription narcotics, including
Dilaudid and Demerol, that had been taken two days earlier in an armed
robbery of a Kingsville drugstore.

After the discovery of the body, the OPP concluded its robbery
investigation, but police are still awaiting the toxicology results. A
quantity of the stolen drugs was missing, and the OPP say there was no
indication of suicide.

WHERE TO GET HELP:

To get help for an OxyContin addiction contact the House of Sophrosyne,
252-2711; Brentwood Recovery Home for Alcoholics, 253-2441; Narcotics
Anonymous, 977-8063; Windsor Regional Hospital, 254-5577; or the Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health, formerly known as the Addiction Research
Foundation, 1-800-463-6273.