OPERATION LORTAB

Pharmacist Todd Pendergraft of The Medicine Shoppe counts out
Lortabs, the most common drug obtained by fraudulent prescriptions.

Broken Arrow Police Plan To Educate City's Pharmacists

Sometimes getting drugs illegally means buying them at the local
pharmacy using a fraudulent prescription.

Operation Lortab, initiated by Detective Rick Smith and Officer
Steven Vanscoy of the Broken Arrow Police Department, will provide
information and techniques to local pharmacists, who are the last
stop before drugs like Lortab fall into the wrong hands.

A training session for area pharmacists will be held at 7 p.m. April
12 in the North Intermediate High School auditorium, 808 E. College
St.

"I started the idea in response to the number of people trying to
obtain prescription drugs by fraud, calling in false prescriptions or
presenting a forged prescription," said Smith, who was recently
promoted from patrol officer to detective.

Drive thru windows at local pharmacies are a mixed blessing, since
they provide a great service to honest customers, but are a quick
getaway for not so honest ones as well.

"The pharmacists would spot it was a false one (prescription), but
before we got there the person would leave. Then we had a dangerous
situation because a pursuit might develop, and we wanted a way to
catch the person without endangering the public," Smith said.

Further investigation found there are no set procedures for
contacting the police and stalling the suspect when a fraudulent
prescription is identified. Smith even found some pharmacists knew
the prescription was not valid, but sent the suspect back to the
doctor instead of contacting police.

"So we had bad reporting and no set system. What we are trying to do
is come up with a way that the pharmacists can identify the bad
prescriptions to begin with, give them a little bit of training, tell
them what drugs are targeted the most. And that's where we came up
with the name Lortab, because nine out of 10 (most targeted) are
hydrocodone, which is Lortab," Smith said.

Lortab, a pain reliever, is also in the class of drugs that can still
be called in, plus there's a big demand for it now as the drug of
choice, Smith said.

The members of Baker Squad, Smith's patrol group, came up with a
formal problem-solving project and began with a survey of all area
pharmacists.

"We found out some of them were waiting (to call police) until the
person came to pick up the drug, even though six hours before they'd
identified it as a false prescription," he said.

Advance notice to the department, informing officers that a bad
prescription had come in, means a second and likely quicker call can
be made to the department when the suspect arrives.

"That shaved a few minutes off the response time, so then we wanted
to come up with some stalling techniques," he said.

Officers found the best method was to tell the suspect the pharmacist
had a few other prescriptions to fill first, but ask the suspect to
pay.

"Hopefully, they'll send a check or credit card in through the tube.
Most pay in cash, but they will sit there for that extra few minutes
because they have their $13, $14 or $20 through that tube," Smith
said.

Suspects just kept waiting, without the excuse of other customers or
the need to wait for change, can become wary and leave before police
arrive.

"We want to be able to get there while they are in the parking lot.
As soon as they show up and ask for the drug, the crime is complete,"
Smith said.

Suspects don't have to have the drug in hand, so pharmacists are
never to give the drug to a suspect.

"If you want to put some marbles in something and send it out, fine," he said.

After gathering the information from the pharmacies, Vanscoy and the
Street Crimes Unit began developing the seminar for pharmacists and
their representatives to outline the survey results, stalling
techniques and other procedures to follow.

An additional survey was also taken at the pharmacies to determine
where materials used to make methamphetamine, usually purchased in
quantities and-or shoplifted, were being displayed.

"Since these are not high dollar items they are usually in a back
corner out of view, where the more expensive stuff was in view of the
pharmacists so they could prevent shoplifting," Smith said.

Smith's group found the items needed to manufacture meth were being
shoplifted left and right, and stores were even filling the shelves
with 40 boxes of the product simply to give the shelves a full
appearance.

"Then they come back and find the 40 boxes are gone," Smith said.

Some pharmacists got a little education during the survey, in advance
of the seminar, and a few had the light bulb click on concerning a
customer stocking up on questionable items.

"Some even said, 'You know, someone came in here four weeks ago and bought.'"