OXYCONTIN DEATH FUELS DAD'S WAR ON DEALERS

Anonymous tips through a website have led to four arrests since the
site was launched in May.

Strongest Warning Put On Potentially Lethal Drug

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. - It was Super Bowl weekend, and Stevie
Steiner was celebrating. The 19-year-old had just moved to Florida
and had been calling his father regularly with news about his
electrician's job and his plans for the future.

The call Steven Steiner Sr. got Jan. 29 was to tell him his eldest
son was dead. And there was more: The autopsy found OxyContin in his
blood, a prescription narcotic increasingly abused for a heroinlike
high.

Grieving for his son and outraged that no one was arrested for
providing him with the drug, Steiner decided to take on the dealers
himself - all drug dealers.

Steiner launched a website for a group he called DAMMADD, Dads and
Mad Moms Against Drug Dealers (www.dammadd.org). The group takes
anonymous tips about drug dealers and manufacturers and passes them
on to law enforcement. If a tip leads to an arrest and conviction,
the group offers a reward - up to $1,500 if it's a street-level
dealer.

According to the site, there had been 64 tips in all since it was
launched in May and four arrests as of Wednesday morning.

"I have to wake up every morning and see his picture in the living
room and his urn, and it makes me damn mad," said Steiner, 41, of
Tioga Center, N.Y. "That's what gives me the energy. I'm going to
make a difference, there's no doubt."

In Broome County, the southern New York community near where Steiner
lives, about 30 tips have resulted in two arrests.

Broome County Sheriff's Detective Vasili Yacalis said the information
received from Steiner's organization has been credible and more
arrests are coming based on the tips.

"I can see if the tips continue a lot of people are going to find
themselves in jail," Yacalis said. "He's been a tremendous help."

Even Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, the drug linked to Stevie
Steiner's death, gave DAMMMAD a $50,000 grant.

OxyContin, or oxycodone, is a federally approved painkiller widely
prescribed for chronic pain resulting from problems such as arthritis
or cancer. One pill is designed to last 12 hours, but when crushed
and snorted or injected, it produces a quick high.

Witnesses told police that at the party in late January, Stevie
Steiner had snorted two OxyContin tablets.

His death was one of 26 deaths linked to OxyContin in Palm Beach
County during the first four months of 2001, compared to 40 in all of
2000. The drug has been linked to at least 120 overdose deaths
nationwide.

In what is believed to be the first murder charge related to
OxyContin, a man in Virginia pleaded guilty Monday to murder and drug
distribution.

Robert Stallard, 43, admitted injecting OxyContin into the arm of
Nicholas Dickerson, 40, at Stallard's apartment in September.

Prosecutors said selling Dickerson the drug and helping him inject it
was tantamount to shooting him with a gun. Defense attorney Penny
Nimmo said there was no malice and she would seek to reduce the
murder charge to manslaughter before next month's sentencing.
Stallard faces up to 81 years in prison.

In Steiner's case, police couldn't confirm theories about how the
young man obtained the drug. The sheriff's office turned its
investigation over to the state attorney's office, which agreed that
there was no probable cause to arrest anyone, said Detective Richard
Carl.

"The parents can push all they want; it doesn't change facts," Carl
said. "We take facts to the prosecutor, not theories."

Steiner is now using his son's death as an example and a warning.

The DAMMADD site includes a high school photo of Stevie Steiner and a
link to crime-scene photos of his bloated body, with the words: "This
is what the drug dealers are really selling you."

Steiner said he wanted to illustrate the uglier, deadly effects of
drug abuse. He also plans to discuss his son's death when he visits
schools to encourage students to stay off drugs.

"If we just say, 'Listen, we're not going to be scared of the drug
dealers anymore,' we can win" the war against drugs, he said.