JURORS CONVICT PHYSICIAN IN OXYCONTIN DEATHS

MIAMI -- The potent mix of pills including the controversial drug
OxyContin became known as "Graves' cocktails." The parking lot at the
doctor's office was jammed by patients awaiting their turn for a
prescription.

"You've got to realize something's wrong when outside your office,
people are having tailgate parties," Assistant State Atty. Russell
Edgar said.

On Tuesday, a jury in the Florida Panhandle town of Milton agreed,
finding Dr. James Graves guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of four
of his patients from overdoses. The 55-year-old's conviction was
believed to be the first for a physician in deaths linked to abuse of
OxyContin, a synthetic opiate. Graves, who had been Florida's No. 1
prescriber of the powerful painkiller, was also convicted of
racketeering and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. He now
faces up to 30 years in prison.

Graves had maintained under oath that he had no idea his patients
were abusing drugs and that no one would have died if his patients
had taken their medication as he prescribed.

"OxyContin is a good drug if taken properly," H.E. Ellis Jr., the
doctor's defense attorney, said. "Pharmacy companies don't spend
billions of dollars developing drugs if they are going to kill
people."

But the prosecution claimed Graves was desperate for money after he
lost jobs in the Navy, a Pensacola clinic and a state prison. When
word got around that the physician allegedly was indiscriminately
prescribing drugs, the patients--and money--began rolling in. Among
addicts, "word spread that he was the go-to doctor," Edgar told the
jury in his summation Monday. "He is no different than a drug dealer."

The prosecutor estimated that Graves had been grossing $500,000 a
year from patients he saw at his pain management offices in his
hometown of Pace, Fla., north of Pensacola, and Brewton, Ala.

According to drug abuse experts, addicts can obtain a heroin-like
high by chewing OxyContin pills or crushing them to make a solution
for intravenous injection.

Suspicious of Graves' motives, more than 20 area pharmacists
testified that they had stopped filling prescriptions for what they
dubbed "Graves' cocktails"--a mix of OxyContin, painkillers,
tranquilizers and muscle relaxants.

In his three days on the witness stand, Graves said that he was bound
to take his patients at their word when they said they were suffering
and needed drugs to alleviate the pain. "'It is a risk you have to
accept when treating these patients," the doctor said. "They are
deserving of treatment of their pain."