PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE SPIKE CONTINUES

Drug Agents Now Are Seeing Out-Of-Town Prescriptions At Chatham-Area Pharmacies

Chatham County is playing host to a new kind of tourist - prescription
drug abusers.

Over the past nine months, the Chatham-Savannah Counter Narcotics Team
has made dozens of arrests and confiscated a countless amount of
prescription medication.

But after revealing in October that prescription drugs have surpassed
illicit drugs in popularity, their efforts may seem negligible.

In fact, their caseload only has grown, agents said.

"It's really hard to keep up with the numbers that are rising," said
CNT Agent Ron Tyran, who investigates prescription drug cases with
Agent Angelia Coleman. "There's not a day that Angelia and I go out
that the phone doesn't ring and it's someone with more
information."

The interagency drug enforcement force now works nearly as many
prescription drug cases as marijuana or cocaine, Tyran said.

And along with investigations weighed down by federal restrictions on
patient information and the lack of a state-run prescription
monitoring program, now out-of-state visitors are coming to Chatham
County to replenish supplies, which only intensifies the problem, Tyran said.

"The pharmacists here have been expressing their dissatisfaction with
the countless number of prescriptions coming up from Florida with
people from other states in the region," he said. "Pharmacists here
are telling us those residents are finding it hard to get those
prescriptions filled there so they travel here."

Prescribing in Florida, filling here

Afflicted by a sluggish economy, some Florida doctors have turned to
selling prescriptions to make ends meet. Rather than serve patients in
Sunshine State communities where the doctors reside, instead they
attract addicts and dealers from Tennessee and Kentucky, Tyran said.

There's even a Florida doctor who, for a price, will provide people
with false MRI results, which can be taken to another doctor for
powerful painkillers like Oxycodone, Hydrocodone or Soma.

Some doctors even will fill prescriptions on-site, creating one-stop
shopping. But they have since raised their prices by up to seven times
their retail value. Also, many Florida pharmacists are now refusing to
fill prescriptions for people who they suspect are addicted or
dealing, Tyran said.

"We got a call yesterday from a pharmacist about a guy from Fleming
(Ga.) who was in Pooler trying to fill a prescription from Deerfield
Beach (Fla.)," he said.

"And he already got two filled at a different pharmacy and was
attempting to get a third one filled," Coleman added.

Once they get the call about a suspicious prescription holder from a
pharmacist, CNT agents will head out to the location and conduct an
interdiction where they might confiscate a written prescription or
controlled substance. Other times they're only collecting information,
Coleman said.

No help from the state

Georgia remains one of a handful of states across the nation without a
prescription monitoring program. And efforts to start one have failed
repeatedly in the General Assembly, Tyran said.

Pharmacist and state Rep. Ron Stephens said lawmakers were close to
presenting a bill to Gov. Sonny Perdue last session, but last-minute
opposition from a few House members killed the bill.

"There are one or two members that really had concerns about leaning
to the libertarian side; they had problems with patient
confidentiality," Stephens said.

Stephens said his pharmacy receives calls every day from people
looking for high-octane painkillers, and he regularly turns them away.

"I know the problem has gotten worse, tenfold," he
said.

Since Georgia is the only state in the South without a prescription
monitoring program, the problem is magnified along its borders. The
issue has become especially problematic in Chatham County because it
borders South Carolina, which has a monitoring program, Stephens said.

Pharmacists could be the first line of defense against the problem,
but lawmakers have neglected to provide them with the tools to be
effective, Stephens said.

"We're doing it blind because we don't know if the person just filled
a prescription in Darien," he said.

Even more frustrating to some legislators is the state's proposed
monitoring program would be entirely funded by Federal dollars, he
said. But Stephens said he was confident next term a bill would land
on the governor's desk ready to be signed.

Meanwhile, the problem only will get worse, he said.

"It's so rampant in our school systems that we're regularly hearing
stories," he said. "You're seeing addiction problems at young ages.

"And we as pharmacists could be stopping it."

Local database flourishing

In the meantime, CNT's Tyran said he created a secured website similar
to the Savannah-Chatham police Savannah Area Regional Information
Center, which is designed to allow pharmacists to track suspected
abusers. Tyran said the site provides a forum for frustrated
pharmacists to share information about suspected addicts. The site
also is regularly updated to reveal people who recently have faced
arrests on charges of possession or illegal prescription drug sales.

CNT agents will post copies of evidence - like actual prescription
orders - so pharmacists can stay informed and aware.

The site has helped fight the growing inferno sweeping Chatham County
residents, from white collar professionals to blue collar factory
workers, but it is not the solution, Tyran said.

More dealers switching

In the meantime, marijuana and cocaine dealers have made lucrative
careers by switching to illegal pill sales. Some forms of Oxycodone,
known commercially as OxyContin, can go for up to $80 per pill.

"And you've got some people eating three to four of those every day,"
Coleman said.

Tyran added he expected the current low interest in heroin soon to
skyrocket as pill addicts look for an alternative when a pill supplier
has depleted.

Treatment difficult

Southside addiction specialist Ray Gaskin said he also has seen a
growing list of clients desperate for a way out of the depths of
prescription drug addiction.

But heroin is up, too, especially among Savannah's college students,
Gaskin said.

"It's free enterprise; all drug problems are local because of
availability," he said. "I have seen some of the younger people
downtown doing drugs like heroin, but most people like to know what
they're getting.

"So they use pills."

The county's affinity for pills isn't reserved to the ever-popular
drug, Hydrocodone, known commercially as Vicodin.

"I am seeing problems with prescription drugs and not just opioids,"
Gaskin said. "We're seeing Xanax, Adderall, Soma and a drug called
Methadone."

Gaskin said Methadone generally is known as a safe alternative to help
heroin addicts kick the habit, but it's also used as a painkiller. But
if it is mixed with the wrong drug or taken in a large dose, it could
easily lead to death, he said.

Gaskin, who currently serves as president of the Georgia chapter of
the American Society of Addiction Medicine and as a professor at the
Georgia Medical College, said beating a pill habit actually is harder
than kicking methamphetamine addiction.

"I'd have to give a nudge to opioids as being more difficult," he
said. "Some people can get off meth but not opioids.

"But that has been vice-versa."