MANY APPALACHIAN DOCTORS SNARED IN DRUG CRACKDOWN

Most of the doctors had been recruited to the region to help care for rural
residents.

PIKEVILLE, KY. - More than a dozen Appalachian doctors, many of them
recruited to work in the medically underserved region, have been taken away
from their patients in handcuffs for allegedly supplying drug addicts with
powerful narcotics.

In eastern Kentucky alone, seven small-town doctors are in prison or on
their way for illegally prescribing drugs like the painkiller OxyContin. At
least six others have been arrested in the hills of West Virginia, Virginia,
and southern Ohio.

Advocates for the mountain region say that while the loss of so many doctors
leaves a void, in these circumstances, the departures can only improve
medical care. "As badly as we need more physicians, we certainly don't need
the type that will violate their oaths and do much more harm than good,"
said Ewell Balltrip, executive director of the Kentucky Appalachian
Commission.

Federal and state law enforcement agencies began cracking down on wayward
physicians in Appalachia in 2000, after OxyContin, intended for cancer
patients and others suffering from severe pain, began showing up in large
quantities on the black market.

The first eastern Kentucky physician snared in the crackdown - Dr. Ali
Sawaf, 61, of Harlan - had allegedly turned to illegally prescribing
OxyContin and other painkillers after he lost his $250,000-a-year job at a
regional clinic.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger West said at the time that Dr. Sawaf handed
out prescriptions almost as quickly as he could write them.

The latest physician to plead guilty, Dr. David Procter, 52, of South Shore,
traded pain killers for sex. He admitted to a federal judge that he had
sexual relations with two female patients after they became hooked on the
drugs.

Most of the doctors caught in the past two years had been recruited to the
region to help care for rural residents, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat
Molloy.

"They may not have stepped over the line before they got here, but clearly
they were corruptible," Mr. Molloy said.

The problem is not confined to Appalachia. A Florida doctor was convicted of
manslaughter in the OxyContin overdose deaths of four patients. A
Connecticut physician, nicknamed "Dr. Feelgood" by police for the
prescriptions he wrote for OxyContin and other pain killers, was convicted
last year.

Authorities blame the abuse of OxyContin for scores of overdose deaths in
Appalachia.