TAKING A STAND ON DANGEROUS, ADDICTIVE DRUGS

The potential for prescription painkillers to become dangerously addictive
makes them a priority for local law enforcement.

They're not the sole priority -- or even the top one -- judging by comments
by federal drug prosecutor Doug Grace during an interview at his Owen Sound
law office. That goes to large-scale outdoor marijuana growing operations
which have become a feature of life in the rural areas of Grey and Bruce.
From a law enforcement perspective, the relatively small-scale
street-level business of peddling pills at $10 a pop can't compare.

Growing operations producing contraband worth hundreds of thousands of
dollars come with criminal desperadoes with firearms and organized crime
connections. They are a dangerous threat to police and to public safety.

The local street trade in Oxycodone-based analgesics under trade names such
as Percoset, Percodan and OxyContin happens on a much smaller scale, often
among people who have become addicted to their pain medicines. But the
public hazards are real enough: damaged lives for addicts, the risk of
overdose deaths and interference with legitimate use of beneficial medicines.

"They're highly addictive and so I take a firm stand on anybody trading in
hard drugs no matter how minute the quantity," Grace said. "There's a
second social reason for being hard on it and it is that the more they are
misused, the risk is that government will make them more tightly controlled
and make them harder to get for people with legitimate pain."

The most significant recent local case dates from 1999. An Owen Sound man
pleaded guilty to four counts of trafficking in cocaine and Percodan and
was sentenced to 42 months in jail.

The arrest followed a year-long undercover investigation of a
drugs-for-stolen-goods scheme operated by a former city man and an
associate. The man sold drugs to undercover officers on five separate
occasions in payment for what he thought was stolen merchandise.

At the time of sentencing, the convicted man's defence lawyer told court
that his client had a prescription for Percodan because of a spinal injury
he received in a serious car accident. Since the 1999 conviction, the
illegal trade of prescription drugs in the city has been relatively quiet.

"Whether that stopped it or drove it further underground or whether we're
just having a lull, I don't know," Grace said when asked about recent
cases. "I don't think I see enough to notice a trend."

Invariably, they are awkward cases, often involving attempts to manipulate
the legal process that controls prescription drug distribution. Unlike
fully restricted drugs, controlled medications have a legitimate, everyday
role in people's lives.

"There are several players when it comes to prescription drugs and each has
a different interest and, except for the bad guy, nobody's wrong," Grace
said, referring to the roles of physicians, pharmacists and patients with pain.

Pharmacy break-ins are relatively uncommon in the region, so the most
common criminal cases involve patients with prescriptions attempting to
deceive doctors and pharmacists.

Case histories include those who seek prescriptions from more than one
doctor for the same complaint and others who have altered a prescription to
increase the authorized number of doses.

Patients have a legitimate interest in large-volume prescriptions to
minimize pharmacy dispensing expenses, but those surplus pills form the
basis of the illegal trade locally, Grace said.

"Doctors want to treat patients with pain and pharmacists want to make sure
people who need drugs get them at a reasonable cost, so there's no absolute
cure to the problem," he said.

As an illegal commodity, prescription drugs have several attractions for
people seeking a euphoric effect.

Because they're produced by reputable manufacturers, the medicines contain
consistent, predictable quantities of their active ingredients. The same
can't be said of street drugs such as cocaine, speed and ecstasy.

"There's a certain consistency to what they're getting and they know
they're not going to suddenly go off the deep end from some reaction to
something sprinkled on it," Grace said of prescription pills.

They also provide a readily accessible substitute for the more dangerous
injectable opioids -- morphine and heroin.

"Addiction comes when you've gone to la la land and you can't get it out of
your mind," Grace said. "A lot of these people are addicts.

"How they become addicted? Who knows," he said. "A lot of people live
painful lives."

Canadian courts tend to be sympathetic in cases of pure addiction,
providing criminal sentences that aim for medical treatment rather than
jail. That doesn't apply to cases of trafficking.

"If you are an addict in the business of selling serious drugs to other
people, the fact you're an addict doesn't cut you much slack," Grace said.
"Don't put prescription drugs on some kind of pedestal. The fact that
they're prescription drugs means they are available for people with
legitimate pain and there are several problems with them."

Grace cites the risks to others as justification for strong sentencing
measures in cases of prescription drug traffic.

"The large-scale production of marijuana is high on my priority list; low
on my list would be simple possession of marijuana benign in
circumstances," Grace said.

"The sale of highly addictive opiates and prescription drugs I would put
high on my priority list. They are very, very addictive and in my opinion,
dangerous."