COPS CRACK DOWN ON PRESCRIPTION ABUSE

Area police credit arrests to good training

Police in central Wisconsin made a record number of prescription-abuse
arrests in 2002, but officers say it signals good police training, not a
drug problem.

"We've focused so long on the street drugs, there really hasn't been a focus
on pharmaceutical misuse," said Phyllis Wesener, a police detective in
Wisconsin Rapids.

"We've just gotten more aggressive. Now we're starting to see the results."
The Central Wisconsin Drug Task Force last year made 70 of the 132 statewide
arrests for prescription-drug abuse. It was the highest number of any of the
state's drug task forces, according to an Office of Justice Assistance
report.

The Central Wisconsin Task Force includes law enforcement agencies in
Portage, Wood, Waupaca, Waushara, Marquette, Juneau and Adams counties.

Wesener has become the task force's go-to person for cases involving widely
abused prescription drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin. She took a two-week
class at the Drug Enforcement Agency's training center last summer.

"The training opened my eyes to it," she said.

Prescription pain pills are highly addictive opium derivatives. An addiction
to narcotic pain medication can cause cravings and withdrawal symptoms like
nausea, depression, hot and cold sweats and insomnia.

The drugs also are the bane of law enforcement agencies because they're
legal, making it difficult to catch abusers.

"If one person had 20 prescriptions and went to one pharmacy, it'd send up a
red flag," Wesener said. "If they go to different pharmacies, it looks
legitimate. When you finally put it together, that's when we get the case."
Police departments, including those in Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids,
have started drug fraud programs where pharmacies report suspected altered
prescriptions.

In September, Wesener put together her first OxyContin case against a man
who had forged prescriptions in Wisconsin Rapids, Stevens Point, Minocqua,
Wausau, Waupaca and Nekoosa.

"It appeared he had an abuse problem," she said. "He was probably using it
himself." The Office of Justice Assistance, which tracks crime across the
state, started recording prescription-abuse arrests in 1998, said Sterling
DeWitt, who evaluates crime statistics. Pharmaceutical arrests have
increased every year since then.

The four or five people who counselor Mike Slavin treated in the past year
for pain medication addiction got hooked because of legitimate
prescriptions, he said.

"They were not people that were out abusing drugs," said Slavin, who works
for Ministry Behavioral Health's residential treatment center in Stevens
Point. "A couple of them told me they were able to find people to buy it
illegally." Doctors can prescribe a new pain medication called Ultram,
billed as a nonaddictive alternative to narcotic drugs like OxyContin and
Vicodin. The drug, which came out about a year ago, is known by the generic
name of tramadol.

But doctors still mostly prescribe addictive pain medication instead of the
new nonaddictive drug, which is more expensive, said Todd Faulks, pharmacy
director at St. Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point.

"Physicians are more hesitant to try new medications, particularly pain
medications, in case there are side effects that haven't been cleared in the
initial trial," he said.

For some, pain medication is simply a drug of choice, said Stevens Point
Police Sgt. Mike Retzki. He has known users to crush, then snort or inject
pain medication, causing a heroin-like high.

"They feel it's not as dangerous as taking coke because its prescribed,"