DOCTOR AT CENTER OF DRUG PROBE

Group Sold Pills, Prosecutors Say

As a doctor, Edward James Peterson Jr. treated patients for a variety of
ailments.

Now federal prosecutors say the doc not only prescribed drugs for pain, but
also for abuse.

Peterson is serving a two-year prison term after pleading guilty last June
to a federal charge of dispensing a controlled substance. In 1997,
Peterson's license to practice medicine was taken away for the second time
in 10 years.

Four people have been arrested or convicted in the ongoing federal
investigation of the drug case involving Peterson, his patients or those
who posed as patients.

The latest conviction came last Wednesday when Loraine Harold Alexander,
43, pleaded guilty on a charge he conspired with Peterson to get drugs
through fraud and deception.

Federal prosecutor Ronald Brunson said the investigation of the case is
continuing, but he declined to give further details of the probe.

No Medical Purpose

The drugs that have caused Peterson to come under investigation were not
used for any "qualified medical purpose," said Brunson. Peterson made the
whole deal happen by using his medical license, he said.

"It's not your run-of-the-mill drug case in that it did not involve street
drugs," Brunson said. "He had to have his medical license to do this. None
of the others did."

The illegal prescription drug case centers on Peterson, a 52-year-old
doctor from Leeds who has faced mandatory drug testing and lost his medical
license twice over his use of the painkiller hydrocodone dating back to
1986, according to records from the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners.

State records show that Peterson administered controlled substances to
himself and others for "no legitimate medical purpose" between January 1985
and October 1986. The board ordered him to take drug tests, restricted his
use to write prescriptions and told him to attend Alcoholics Anonymous,
among other things.

He tested positive for hydrocodone and eventually lost his medical license
in June 1987, state records show.

The Medical Licensure Commission of Alabama reinstated Peterson's license
in March 1988 with various restrictions, including that Peterson be on
probation for three years. The restrictions were dropped in 1991 after
probation.

Peterson faltered again and was arrested in 1997 on a federal charge of
illegally dispensing the controlled narcotic oxycodone from about September
1996 to September 1997, according to federal court records.

He surrendered his medical license in October 1997, and pleaded guilty in
December 1998 to one federal count of dispensing a controlled substance,
records show.

While Peterson was awaiting sentencing in the federal case, Tarrant police
arrested him March 12, 1999, after catching him deliver six Lortab
painkillers to an informant, said Jefferson County prosecutor Brandon
Falls. Police also found 86 other pills in Peterson's car, Falls said.

Defense attorney John Sudderth, who represented Peterson in state court,
sees things differently in the Tarrant case. "Those are totally disputed
facts," Sudderth said Friday.

"It's been adjudicated," Sudderth said. "Gone before the judge. It's
history."

Birmingham attorney Bill Clark, who represented Peterson in federal court,
refrained from comment Friday, saying he would not discuss the case without
first contacting Peterson.

In June 1999, Peterson was sentenced to two years in federal prison. Five
months later he appeared in Jefferson County Circuit Court and was
sentenced to two years in prison on one count of distributing a controlled
substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance in
connection with the Tarrant case.

Peterson's two-year federal and two-year state sentences will run
concurrently, said Falls.

Falls said it was not the amount of pills alone that made Peterson's
actions illegal in the Tarrant case, but that he unlawfully distributed
them.

When Peterson is released from prison, he will be on a three-year
supervised probation and must undergo drug treatment.

"The federal law treats people the same whether they are a doctor or street
seller of cocaine," Brunson said. "Most addicts continue feeding their
addiction until successfully treated."

Larry Dixon, executive director of the state's Board of Medical Examiners,
said it's "extremely uncommon" for a doctor to abuse the authority to
prescribe controlled substances. He said the medical community would view
Peterson as an "anomaly."

Pain Killers

Prosecutors say Alexander, the patient who pleaded guilty last week, was
part of a scheme handled by Peterson where the physician wrote pain killer
prescriptions for certain patients. The patients got the prescriptions
filled and returned the drugs to Peterson for him to use, Brunson said.
For their trouble, the patients would get to take or sell some of the
pills.

The overall operation involved what the Drug Enforcement Administration
calls the most abused prescription drug in the state - hydrocodone, Brunson
said.

Prosecutors said Alexander got prescriptions for Lorcet, a pain killer that
contains the drug hydrocodone, filled for Peterson.

Abuse of Privilege

"What he did is an extreme abuse of privilege. The vast majority of your
doctors would agree that there are a lot of privileges that go hand and
hand with being a medical doctor," Dixon said. "But there are also extreme
responsibilities. He abused those privileges and did not accept the
responsibility.

"I don't know why someone would throw away the training and privileges that
he's had. It just doesn't make any sense to me," Dixon said.