VIRGINIA SCRUTINIZES PRESCRIPTION FRAUD

They call and pretend to be doctors, or bring phony prescriptions and
excuses about why they need more pills.

"I lost" my supply, they tell Norfolk pharmacist Brian Smith. "I knocked it
down the drain."

In reality, Smith said, they're often car accident victims hooked on
pain-killers, party-goers seeking a high from the latest club drug or
injured weekend athletes who turn to prescription medication rather than
miss work.

"Some of them are very good" at getting fraudulent prescriptions, said
Smith, who calls law enforcers on every suspicion. "We feel like we are
policemen."

Sometimes several people a month try to get drugs illegally from his East
Little Creek Road Walgreens in Norfolk, and he senses from talking to
colleagues that the overall problem is getting worse.

Many law enforcement authorities agree.

The number of new prescription fraud cases handled by Virginia State Police
has more than tripled during the past five years -- from 495 in 1997 to
1,738 last year. The number of arrests jumped from 184 to 1,444 during that
time.

While statewide attention has focused on Southwest Virginia and its
problems with the prescription painkiller OxyContin, drug fraud has grown
statewide, said state police Sgt. J.C. Lewis.

"I would use the word 'significant,' " Lewis said.

Lewis could not provide regional statistics, but Chesapeake, Norfolk and
Virginia Beach authorities are reporting more arrests or bigger caseloads
than two years ago.

Norfolk investigators intend to indict 16 people this year, which is more
than half the number of arrests they made in 2001 for prescription fraud,
said Investigator Cathy Pederson.

To help police, the General Assembly is considering a bill to create a
monitoring database, giving state police a way of tracking customers who
may be obtaining prescription drugs fraudulently. Those drugs include the
anti-anxiety medicine Xanax and painkillers Vicodin, Percodan and
OxyContin, which, investigators say, has yet to become a major problem in
South Hampton Roads.

Critics of the proposal say it raises privacy issues.

Federal agents say prescription fraud has been problematic since the 1970s,
when drug abusers duped drugstores out of amphetamines for personal use or
for sale on the black market. By the 1980s, Quaaludes, or downers, were the
drug of choice.

It's possible the problem 20 years ago never reached the more suburban and
rural backdrop of Virginia, as it has now with the spread of OxyContin,
said Rogene Waite, spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

OxyContin, known as "Hillbilly Heroin" among drug enforcement authorities,
is a legal prescription drug that delivers pain-killing medicine. But
people who abuse the drug crush and inject it for a potentially lethal
high. More than 100 deaths nationwide have been linked to OxyContin's
abuse, and nearly half of those have been in Virginia, state officials said.

The deaths have spurred greater public awareness of prescription fraud.

Last month, President Bush's niece, Noelle Bush, was charged with
prescription fraud. She is accused of posing as a doctor and trying to call
a Florida pharmacy with a prescription for Xanax for herself. She was
arrested when she tried to pick it up.

"Obviously, with what has happened, there's a lot more awareness" of the
problem, said Virginia Beach police Capt. Greg Mullen. That awareness has
translated into more reports of fraud by pharmacies, which has led to more
investigations.

Virginia Beach investigated 189 cases of prescription fraud in 1999, 241 in
2000 and 269 in 2001.

Chesapeake Detective Deb Taylor said the problems aren't always connected
to accident victims hooked on pain pills. She sees Xanax being used as a
club drug, providing a buzz when chased with a beer. It also is used in
combination with the party drug Ecstasy for "parachuting," authorities
said, or softening the crash that follows an Ecstasy high.

Catching suspects poses a distinct challenge, Taylor said. They don't hang
on street corners like someone buying cocaine. They blend in at crowded
drugstores, often leaving before police arrive, she said.

The perpetrators often move from drugstore to drugstore, leaving
investigators dependent on pharmacists to call in with tips.

The recent proliferation of drugstores adds to investigators' work, Taylor
continued. And quality scanners and home computers can produce fake
prescriptions that are tough to pick out from real ones.

Finding and chasing down suspects "can be like finding a needle in a
haystack," she said.

A proposed solution, the creation of a databank to track down prescription
drug fraud suspects, was approved 39-0 by the state Senate on Monday, and
is to be taken up by the House of Delegates next week. It was pushed by
Southwest Virginia lawmakers concerned about OxyContin abuse.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. William C. Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, would
require pharmacists to report the sales of certain controlled substances
and the names of their purchasers to a database that state police could access.

"Right now, it's almost impossible for fraud investigators to do" their
jobs, said Scott County Del. Terry Kilgore, another Southwest Virginia
lawmaker who supports the measure. "By the time they chase down one, there
are 10 more to go after."

But Suffolk Del. Chris Jones, a pharmacist who owns Bennett's Creek
Pharmacy, said the measure goes too far by releasing medical information
that should remain confidential.

"I have some reservations about that," he said.

Lewis, of the state police, sees the problem worsening as police crack down
on street-level narcotics dealers.

The incentive for prescription fraud is there, he said. Why risk arrest on
the street when you can get reliable drugs from a pharmacy?