DRUG 'DIVERSION' IS TARGETED LAW ENFORCEMENT IS GETTING A BOOST

Local law enforcement's battle against the pervasive, but often
untracked crimes involving prescription drugs got a big boost recently
from new prescription-tracking legislation and pharmaceutical
diversion investigative squads in Northern Kentucky and southwest Ohio.

Officials say the developments are key to stemming the growing illegal
trade and abuse of prescription drugs, which the White House Office of
Drug Control Policy says are second only to marijuana in their rate of
abuse nationally.

In Northern Kentucky, efforts to increase the ranks of those
investigating so-called "pharmaceutical diversion" crimes were
strengthened by the inception of the area's only Pharmaceutical
Diversion Unit at the Boone County Sheriff's Department in July. The
two detectives assigned to the team received special training last
summer at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. though both have
accumulated substantial experience in investigating such crimes in the
past.

Almost simultaneous to the formation of Boone County's team, federal
funding was awarded for another specialized squad in southwest Ohio,
where Hamilton, Warren and part of Clinton County have been designated
a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area by the U.S. Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

The new designation means that the lion's share of $137,000 in annual
federal funding will go to fight prescription drug crime in the area
through the Southwest Ohio HIDTA Pharmaceutical Diversion Initiative.
The coordinator of the initiative, Warren-Clinton Drug Task Force
Commander John Burke, said it brings together officers from four
agencies -- the Cincinnati Police Department's Pharmaceutical
Diversion Squad, the Warren-Clinton Drug Task Force, the Drug Abuse
Resistance Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration's
Pharmaceutical Diversion Task Force -- to investigate and prosecute
law breakers.

The new units, taken along with a soon-to-be-signed Ohio
prescription-tracking law similar to one Kentucky already has, are
expected to help peace officers make significant gains in fighting a
crime that experts say happens all around us all the time.

"Pharmaceutical diversion is kind of funny because it's going on in
every community, but it appears not to exist unless you go after it
purposely," said Burke, considered among the nation's experts in
pharmaceutical diversion investigation after he started Cincinnati
police's unit in 1990 with federal grant money.

"Before Cincinnati got that grant, very few (pharmaceutical diversion)
arrests were being made. But after they got the grant, we were making
250 arrests a year within a few years. So it doesn't get the attention
other crimes do, but the overdose deaths related to prescription drugs
far outweigh those from cocaine and other drugs."

The two detectives assigned to Boone County's new unit concur with
Burke's assessment of both the pervasiveness and the deadliness of
such crimes.

Through their relationships with local pharmacies and use of the
Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting -- KASPER --
database, Detectives Bobby Pate and Bruce McVay say they've grown
increasingly aware that the problem is far greater than the resources
dedicated to combating it.

"It can be as simple as -- an individual who's abusing painkillers who
changes the amount of pills on a script, all the way to organized
enterprises that deal in large quantities -- who are hooked up with
crooked doctors, crooked nurses and crooked pharmacists who are doing
it because they're getting something under the table," McVay said.

Pate and McVay say the database, which Kentucky established in 1999,
is indispensable to such investigations. Under Kentucky law,
pharmacists, veterinarians and others who dispense scheduled drugs
must report key information about prescriptions they fill, including
the names of those prescribing and receiving medications and the
quantity of the drug provided.

KASPER has reduced the time it takes an investigator to review a
patient's prescription history from as much as a month to about 20
minutes.

In Ohio, Burke and others expect to soon reap the rewards of a new
tracking system to be established when Gov. Bob Taft signs the
Dangerous Drug Database bill passed by the Ohio Legislature on Dec.
7.

Even though the new HIDTA designation only sends federal dollars to
fight pharmaceutical diversion in three Ohio counties, Kentucky drug
crime fighters say the important federal designation boosts their
cause across the region.

"If anybody here gets a HIDTA designation then I'm going to say it
brings opportunity closer for everybody," said Northern Kentucky Drug
Strike Force Director Jim Liles, who has talked of seeking HIDTA
designation for Northern Kentucky.

Likewise, Burke said Boone County's Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit
lends support to those investigating similar crimes in the Buckeye
state, which have lacked a specialized Northern Kentucky
pharmaceutical crime contact since the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike
Force last employed a pharmaceutical investigator more than five years
ago.

"It think it's always been important -- because when (Northern
Kentucky) did have someone, our people were in contact with her
several times a week," Burke said.

In fact, Cincinnati Police Pharmaceutical Diversion Specialist Andy
Brown suggests that once word gets out about Boone County's new unit,
they may need to expand.

"We get a lot of doctors and pharmacists in Kentucky who call us,"
Brown said.

"As soon as they find out Northern Kentucky has a unit that does that,
I think they're going to be swamped."