PARENTS DESCRIBE LIVES CUT SHORT BY DRUG USE

A Symposium At The Capitol Aimed To Build Support For Legislation To Track
Prescriptions.

TALLAHASSEE -- Flanked by photos of their dead children, several parents
attended a drug symposium Wednesday at the state Capitol focused on
Florida's skyrocketing problem of prescription-drug abuse.

Clad in a tuxedo and looking ready for a high-school dance, 19-year-old
Bobby Ashcraft smiled from a picture that his mother, Teresa Ashcraft of
DeBary, had taped to a poster, along with a handwritten message: "OxyContin
killed his future."

"It doesn't matter if you live in a slum or a pillared mansion," said
Ashcraft, a cafeteria manager with the Volusia County school system.
"People are dying from these drugs, and we have to stop it."

The symposium, which drew Gov. Jeb Bush and Attorney General Charlie Crist,
along with state and national drug experts, was the latest in a series of
efforts aimed at rallying support for curbing prescription-drug abuse,
which officials said is killing an average of five Floridians a day.

"This is a horrible situation that we need to deal with, and we will," Bush
said.

Turning to the half-dozen parents lining a front row at the hearing, Bush
said their presence "puts a human face on an issue that is so painful, for
so many families in this state."

Barbara Waldron of Palm Beach Gardens grew tearful when recalling her
daughter, Blair, who struggled for years with depression before dying last
February of a fatal mix of Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, cocaine and
heroin, just hours after being released from the hospital.

"It was trauma and drama every day with her," Waldron said.

Maryann Carey of Delray Beach remembered her son Steven, 25, as a free
spirit. He used cocaine, Xanax and OxyContin, a narcotic pain reliever, the
night he died.

"He was a party person," Carey said. "They called themselves the weekend
warriors. But he didn't get his drugs through prescription. They're on the
streets."

Still, all the grieving parents said they thought legislation now in the
works could have helped spare their children.

"You can't be with your kids 24-7," Ashcraft said. "But Bobby didn't have a
problem. He came across a new drug in the neighborhood, and he did it
purely recreationally. He was 19 years old and did something stupid and
paid with his life."

The legislation, which likely will win approval shortly after lawmakers
convene their annual session March 2, would create a new
prescription-tracking database, financed partly by Purdue Pharma, the
Connecticut-based maker of OxyContin.

The company agreed to pay $2 million to develop the software after a
yearlong state probe into the company's marketing of the drug, which has
been linked to nationwide reports of abuse, addiction and overdose deaths.

The Orlando Sentinel reported in October that deaths in Florida from
oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, are topping those from heroin.
Separately the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has reported that state
regulators largely failed to curb runaway Medicaid prescription costs for
pain-relief patches, sleeping pills, tranquilizers and other highly abused
drugs.

The paper found that less than 3 percent of the state's medical
professionals issued the vast majority of these prescriptions, which are
abused by patients or find their way onto the streets.