FEDERAL MONITORING OF RESEARCHERS' USE OF STREET DRUGS LAX

DEA reportedly `ignores' universities

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 use 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 drug-fighting agency 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 the 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."

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 the Ohio board of pharmacy and president of a
national association of state controlled-substances authorities. "We
don't have the resources."

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, that his agency leaves to DEA the monitoring of
researchers, who 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.