NARCOTICS SELDOM MONITORED IN RESEARCH

DEA Decides Who Can Have Drugs, But Often Doesn't Follow Up On Use

WASHINGTON -- The government provides more than $250 million a year to
universities studying heroin, cocaine and marijuana but seldom monitors
researchers after they buy drugs for experiments.

A university researcher overdosed this year on cocaine he bought with
federal grants. A dozen others recently have been investigated for possible
misuse of narcotics, federal officials told The Associated Press.

About 4,500 researchers are registered by the Drug Enforcement
Administration to conduct experiments with controlled substances such as
administering cocaine to lab animals for addiction studies and using
morphine or other painkillers to anesthetize lab animals. About 535 of the
total are authorized to employ in their research the most dangerous drugs,
including heroin, morphine and LSD.

The government even provides some of the drugs, which can come from police
raids.

DEA officials say agents perform background checks, review research
proposals and visit laboratories before granting permission to researchers.
The drugs must be kept under lock and key, their use carefully recorded,
the DEA said.

The DEA also tracks researchers' drug purchases, but it rarely conducts
surprise checks because it lacks sufficient staff. Instead, it relies on
state and university officials for primary oversight, DEA and university
officials said.

"Our experience has been that the DEA in general ignores research
institutions," said Dale Cooper, compliance officer at the University of
Minnesota, where a researcher died this spring.

"They come out when you get your license and put the fear of God into you,
and then you never see them again," Cooper said.

Laurie McHale, spokeswoman for the University of Washington Medical Center,
said UW researchers who need to use illicit drugs for scientific studies
are required to register with the DEA. McHale said the federal agency is
primarily responsible for monitoring the use and disposition of the drugs.

DEA officials said they have only 400 agents to monitor drug manufacturers,
distributors, analytical laboratories, pharmacies and doctors. Thus, they
ordinarily don't check a researcher unless they receive a report of a
problem.

Dr. Keith Kajander, who ran a University of Minnesota dental school lab on
pain research, fatally overdosed on cocaine in April shortly after he used
federal grant money to buy a fresh supply from a California distributor.

Kajander, 45, bought at least 80 grams (almost 3 ounces) of cocaine with
federal money since 1996 even though his grant proposals did not mention
the drug, police reports show. His DEA registration allowed him to buy the
cocaine.

The university receives $70 million annually in federal grants for medical
research, half of which involve controlled substances, and has more than a
thousand researchers working with drugs. Yet the DEA never investigated the
school after Kajander's death, said Dr. Richard Bianco, assistant vice
president of the academic health center. The university has strengthened
its policies on drug buys.

Although the DEA said it relies on state and university officials for
primary oversight, some states also lack the capacity to do regular
inspections.

"We rely heavily on the university to do its job," said Tim Benedict,
assistant director of Ohio's board of pharmacy and president of a national
association of state controlled-substances authorities. "We don't have the
resources," he said.

The University of Minnesota's Cooper said his survey of 26 universities
found only three with written policies for research use of controlled
substances.

Kajander's death wasn't Minnesota's first problem with research drugs. In
1998, burglars stole almost $4,000 worth of ketamine, a PCP-type "club
drug" used as an anesthetic for humans and animals. And in 1991, a campus
janitor stole heroin, cocaine and other drugs from a laboratory and died of
an overdose.

Other states also report problems.

Legislative auditors in Montana are investigating the 1998 theft of
painkiller drugs from an animal laboratory at the University of Montana.

Twelve of the 2,413 drug cases under investigation by the DEA's office of
diversion control in the last fiscal year involved researchers. Seven
remain open. The closed cases resulted in letters of admonition or
administrative hearings, officials said.

Agency officials would not discuss the Minnesota case or any other
investigation.

Researchers undergo rigorous federal screening before they receive U.S.
grants. Research proposals are carefully scrutinized, and experiments are
monitored by institutional review boards.

"There's an entire infrastructure in place to oversee research," said Dr.
Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which funds
most research into drug abuse.

Leshner said, however, his agency leaves to DEA the monitoring of
researchers. Between 1,500 and 2,000 of the institute's grant recipients
use street drugs in their research.

Researchers say the threat of a surprise DEA visit, even if rare, is a
deterrent.

"You're under notice that they can come in any time and look at your
records," said George Ricaurte of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions,
who has done federally funded experiments on the methamphetamine known as
ecstasy.