DRUG ABUSERS TURNING TO MEDICAL PATCHES FOR HIGHS

Three Overdoses In Brookville Reveal Problem

People stealing and then eating patches used to administer powerful
painkillers such as morphine and OxyContin is the latest form of drug abuse
to hit the Miami Valley.

On Thursday, three Brookville men were rushed to the hospital for treatment
after Brookville Police Chief Andrew Papanek said they apparently ate pain
patches normally used to administer drugs through the skin. He said the
drug ingested was Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate 10 times more powerful than
morphine.

The men, admitted to intensive care on Thursday, were released Friday.

Law-enforcement officials and drug-abuse professionals said they are
starting to see more and more patch abuse.

John Burke, vice president of the National Association of Drug Diversion
Investigators and commander of the Warren County Drug Task Force, said
there has been a significant increase in patch abuse recently. He said the
street value of a Fentanyl patch is $25 to $40.

"As the prescribing of the patches goes up, the diversion goes up," he
said. "In Ironton, they actually had three deaths from this in the past six
months."

Harvey A. Siegal, a medical sociologist and director of the Center for
Interventions, Treatment and Addictions Research at Wright State
University, said this is the first he has heard of such abuse in the Dayton
area.

"People will actually take this patch, extract the gel and squeeze it out
and get themselves in a lot of trouble," he said. "Overdose is very
possible. It's like getting a day's worth of narcotics in a single dose."

Other Schedule II drugs administered in this way include morphine and
OxyContin. Schedule II drugs have the highest restriction of any
prescription drug and have the highest propensity to cause abuse and/or
addiction.

Although the patches can be stolen from pharmacies or patients before use,
used patches contain up to 60 percent of the drug, and abusers have been
known to take them from trash containers at health-care centers and hospitals.

"Sometimes, people will get jobs in nursing homes just to have access to
these drugs," Siegal said.

He suggests that anyone disposing of used patches cut them into strips and
flush them down a toilet to prevent accidental or intentional ingestion.

"What if somebody has them in the garbage and the dog gets to them?" he
said. "You could have a dead dog."

Dave Connolly, resident agent in charge at the Dayton office of the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration, was not familiar with such abuse of
patches in this area. "I haven't heard that one," he said. "It sounds like
a new method. They could think it's like a nicotine patch, but they could
get a fatal dose because of this."

Papanek said his department is continuing to investigate.

"The investigation continues, and depending on the outcome of the
investigation, it will determine whether charges are forthcoming," he said.