PAINKILLER THIEVES GET MORE CREATIVE

Some Seek Their Next Fix By Posing As Homebuyers

For real estate agents in Simsbury, Conn., James Dimeola seemed to be the
ultimate window shopper. He kept showing up at open houses last year for
homes of wildly varying prices. Sometimes he brought a woman and a child.
He would tour homes thoroughly but would never make an offer.

Then several home sellers complained that some of their prescription drugs
were missing from their medicine cabinets. An office manager for a local
real estate office called police, who eventually focused on Dimeola as a
suspect. Dimeola, who later acknowledged being addicted to painkillers, was
convicted in January of larceny and now is on two years' probation.

"He did this for a long time and got away with it," says Thomas Sheehan, a
police detective in Simsbury, a community of about 23,000 northwest of
Hartford. "At first, he was really brazen. He'd look around and open
cabinets. He'd leave his business card. He talked knowledgably about real
estate."

The case reflected the increasingly creative tactics that some desperate
addicts are using to worm their way into homes so they can steal
prescription painkillers, particularly OxyContin and Percocet. Police
across the nation say that in recent months, drug thieves have posed as
potential homebuyers, garage-sale browsers, building inspectors and cops to
get into homes -- and then into medicine cabinets.

Authorities in several cities also have reported burglaries by addicts who
scanned newspaper obituaries for people who died of cancer or other painful
illnesses. While the deceased person's family members attended the funeral,
the addicts broke into the family's home to look for leftover painkillers.

"Those who are seeking drugs have raised their game to a new level," says
Scott Burns, deputy director for state and local affairs at the White House
Office for National Drug Control Policy. "They will use any ruse to get
into someone's home -- 'Can I use your bathroom? Can I use your phone?' --
and then they clean out the medicine cabinet and are gone before you know it."

Such incidents come at a time when the illicit use of prescription
painkillers is becoming more common among teenagers and young adults. The
2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the U.S.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found that 11.2%
of U.S. teenagers reported having used prescription pain relievers for
non-medical reasons at least once. That was up from 9.6% in 2001 and 1.2%
in 1989.

The survey said that 6.2 million people, 3% of the U.S. population, abuse
prescription drugs such as OxyContin, an addictive opium derivative.
Emergency room visits linked to the abuse of pain medicine containing
opiates, such as Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet, Demerol and Darvon, more
than doubled from 1994 to 2001, according to statistics collected by the
U.S. government.

Limbaugh case highlights issue OxyContin made headlines this fall when
conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh acknowledged that he was
addicted to prescription pain medications and temporarily left his show to
go to a rehabilitation clinic. Limbaugh said he began taking the pain
medications to relieve severe back pain. (The Drug Enforcement
Administration and the Food and Drug Administration have asked drugmakers
to reformulate the medications to make them more difficult to abuse.)

Reports of addicts targeting open houses have led real estate groups to
post alerts in trade magazines and on listing services. The alerts tell
agents to have clients lock up medicines and other valuables before open
houses.

The Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin issued an alert last
year after hearing reports about a middle-age woman who went through open
houses, opened drawers and then protested when an agent followed her.

The association advises agents to follow prospective customers through a
home, particularly those who say they want to look around by themselves,
says Kevin King, the group's executive vice president. "The Realtors
probably shake their heads and say, 'I can't believe we have to deal with
this,' " he says. "It's unfortunate that they do."

Thieves often work in pairs. One might talk with an agent in one room while
the other rummages through cabinets and drawers, says Pili Meyer, an agent
with Coldwell Banker in Port Angeles, Wash., a former member of a state
safety panel for real estate agents. She encourages agents to work in pairs
so they do not lose sight of a client.

Meyer says prescription drugs have been stolen from homes that were for
sale in Portland and Salem, Ore. She says some thieves also have gone to
open houses to try to collect credit card receipts. They steal the receipts
and then use the card numbers to order goods by mail, she says.

"It happens everywhere, but it doesn't always get reported because so many
people come into a house, you aren't sure when the drugs were stolen,"
Meyer says. "There's no clearinghouse for this sort of thing."

Impersonating an officer Thieves also have impersonated law enforcement
officers to get into homes.

In Madison, Wis., last December, a 26-year-old man who claimed to be a
private investigator working on a narcotics case for the FBI appeared at
the apartment of a woman carrying a holstered gun and handcuffs.

"He started by asking her a series of questions: 'Do you have narcotics in
the apartment? Do you live alone?' " Madison police spokesman Larry Kamholz
says. The man told her he had heard that she had some leg problems and
asked what pain medicine she was taking, Kamholz says. She told him
Tylenol, and the man asked if he could have some. She said no and he went
away. He returned the next day and asked to use the bathroom, Kamholz says.

After letting the man in, the woman "could hear bottles rattling around" in
the bathroom, Kamholz says, and "this time, she called the police." The
man, Dale Jackson of Madison, was convicted of impersonating a police
officer and sentenced to three years' probation.

"We've been seeing an increase in the lengths that people will go to obtain
drugs. We have people robbing pharmacies of OxyContin," Kamholz says. "But
impersonating a police officer is probably the tops."

Sometimes, the thieves are legitimate city workers.

Two years ago in Utah, a city building inspector stole medicines while
pretending to inspect homes, Burns says. The inspector hit about 20 houses
before he was caught, Burns says.

"Anyone who has prescription drugs in their home is a potential victim,"
Burns says. "People are out to get your drugs any way they can."