OFFICERS TARGET PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE

TUSCALOOSA -- Pharmacist Jim Myers knows a phony prescription when he sees one.

An unusually strong dosage prescribed to someone who looks perfectly
healthy or an unfamiliar signature of a doctor he's known for years are
signs that something could be wrong.

Three or four times a month, someone will come into one of Myers' stores
with a fake prescription, he said. The pharmacist will call a doctor to
check it out, which often leads to a call to local police.

As prescription drug abuse has increased in the county, narcotics officers
have been forced to devote more time to investigating altered or forged
prescriptions.

Tuscaloosa Police Capt. Jeff Snyder, head of the West Alabama Narcotics
Task Force, decided to create a network called "Script-Watch" o an effort
between law enforcement, pharmacies and physicians that would make it much
more difficult to pass a fake prescription.

"We feel like this is a really good program, and we're going to use it to
the fullest," Myers said.

The network, which has been in development for about a year, went into use
last week. It was modeled after a similar program in Calhoun County.

Pharmacists send information about a suspect prescription to a fax number
set up by WANS that simultaneously transmits to all area pharmacies and the
narcotics squad.

A major advantage of the new network will be a way to quickly apprehend
people who go from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to pass false prescriptions.

Narcotics agents will have to spend much less time working on follow-up
investigations, Snyder said.

Most people who alter or forge prescriptions, Snyder said, are in search of
highly addictive painkillers such as hydrocodone, found in the medications
Vicodin and Lortab and oxycodone, found in Oxycontin, Percocet and Tylox.

Myers said another medication people commonly try to obtain illegally is
Xanax, which is taken to reduce anxiety.

Snyder said Tuscaloosa's problem with altered or forged prescriptions is
worsened because of surrounding rural counties, where towns have only one
or two pharmacies.

Pharmacists there catch on quickly if one of their regular customers
presents a phony prescription from one of the few doctors in town. But
Tuscaloosa has more than 45 pharmacies to choose from, Snyder said, and
pharmacists receive prescriptions from hundreds of physicians.

"We're in an unfortunate location," he said.

Snyder said that prescription drug abuse accounts for more drug arrests
than marijuana or cocaine possession.

He said the goal of the program is not to put people addicted to
painkillers behind bars.

"There are good people who get addicted to these things. We want to get
them help so they can get off of them," Snyder said.

"But if they're obtaining them to sell them, we do want to send them to
prison."