OXYCONTIN DEALER GETS 83 YEARS AND FINE OF MORE THAN $1 MILLION

Steve Allen Shelton has said he was addicted to OxyContin and that the pills
he had were for his own consumption.

A Tazewell County judge sentenced an OxyContin dealer Friday to 83 years in
prison, believed to be the state's toughest punishment to date involving the
painkiller.

Dennis Lee, commonwealth's attorney and a member of a state task force on
prescription drug abuse, said he was not aware of a longer sentence imposed
since OxyContin became the drug of choice for abusers in Southwest Virginia
several years ago.

In sentencing Steve Allen Shelton on distribution charges, Circuit Court
Judge Henry Vanover followed the recommendation of a jury that convicted
Shelton last year.

"I think our community has suffered so much from the plague of OxyContin
that the jury was saying, 'enough is enough,'" Lee said. Shelton was also
fined more than $1 million.

In a telephone interview from the county jail earlier in the week, Shelton
said he could not understand why he was getting more time than most
convicted murderers receive.

"It blows my mind," he said. "I've never hurt nobody in my life ... I'm not
no menace to society. The drug is, in my opinion."

Shelton said he was addicted to OxyContin, and that the pills he had were
for his own consumption.

In April 2001, police seized about $100,000 worth of prescription drugs in a
raid of a Tazewell County mobile home. Included in the haul were more than
300 160-milligram OxyContin tablets, what was then the highest dose
available of the painkiller.

The pills were so potent that abusers called them "Oxy-coffin," Lee said at
the time. Just one 160-milligram OxyContin pill carries the same amount of
opium-based narcotic as 32 Percocet pills - a deadly dose for most abusers,
who crush the pills and snort or inject the powder.

Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut company that makes OxyContin, later pulled
the 160-milligram pills from the market.

Police also found other pain pills in smaller doses, a large amount of cash
and a variety of goods that Shelton had apparently accepted in trade for the
drug.