STREET DRUGS USED IN RESEARCH DRAW LITTLE FEDERAL SCRUTINY

WASHINGTON - Thousands of university researchers buy cocaine, heroin and
other street drugs with government grant money for studies on addiction but
are almost never monitored by federal agents to make sure the narcotics are
put to proper use.

Even when evidence of abuse arises, the government doesn't always check up.
A University of Minnesota researcher died of a cocaine overdose shortly
after he bought a fresh supply of the drug with grant money.

University officials told The Associated Press the Drug Enforcement
Administration never investigated.

DEA officials would not discuss the Minnesota case or any other
investigation. But they said the DEA lacks the staff to do regular checks
on the 4,500 researchers registered by the agency to buy drugs for
experiments. Instead, it relies on universities and state agencies that
license researchers for primary oversight.

Agents perform background checks when researchers apply for registration,
review research proposals and visit laboratories before granting
permission. About 535 of those registered are authorized to conduct
research with the most dangerous drugs, including heroin, morphine and LSD.

The agency also tracks researchers' drug purchases, but it rarely conducts
surprise checks because it lacks sufficient staff. Just 400 agents monitor
drug manufacturers, distributors, analytical laboratories, pharmacies and
doctors, so they ordinarily don't check a researcher unless they receive a
report of a problem.

"Monitoring is a local issue," said Dr. Alan Leshner, director of the
National Institute of Drug Abuse, which provided $250 million in grants
last year for researchers to study heroin, cocaine and marijuana. Between
1,500 and 2,000 of the institute's grant recipients employ street drugs in
their research.

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

Researchers and the DEA say the drugs must be kept under lock and key, and
their use carefully recorded.

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
1,000 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.