Pubdate: Mon, 08 Jul 2002
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2002 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Debbie Cenziper

A DETECTIVE'S MISSION, AN ADDICT'S STRUGGLE

DURHAM - With a radio in his back pocket and a gun beneath his shirt, 
Durham County Sheriff's Detective Tom Mellown shuttles between pharmacies, 
hunting addicts and forged prescriptions.

Mellown can identify just about every known drug dealer in town. He grew up 
here, met his wife here, watched the Durham Bulls play baseball on weekend 
nights. For three years, Mellown has worked to crack Durham's drug trade.

Few other prescription drugs before OxyContin, he says, have ever produced 
such desperation among addicts.

In 2000, with the help of pharmacists, police nabbed dozens of abusers 
passing forged prescriptions.

But an addict named Andrea Ferguson eluded them.

Starting in late 1999 until August 2000, she passed some 60 forged 
prescriptions. She started when a friend said, "You have an angel look. No 
one will ever question you."

The friend would pose as a patient and steal prescription pads from 
doctors' offices and hospitals. Ferguson, 30, who started taking OxyContin 
after a car accident, would take the forged prescription to drug stores. An 
attractive mother of three, she would make small talk with pharmacists 
while her friend kept watch to make sure the police weren't called.

By 2000, Ferguson had perfected her technique. She was able to hide the 
sweats and the shakes and the sense of desperation she felt every time she 
ran out of OxyContin.

On a weekday afternoon, she was out of pills again. At a Wal-Mart, she 
presented a forged prescription for 120 OxyContin tablets.

This time, the pharmacist called police.

She was arrested and charged with obtaining a controlled substance by 
fraud. But she served no jail time. Two months later, she was arrested on 
identical charges. Again, she served no jail time. Eight months after that, 
a third arrest, no jail time.

Then Mellown arrested her and charged her with 19 counts of passing forged 
prescriptions.

He told the district attorney and magistrate about Ferguson's history, and 
bond was set at $25,000. Ferguson spent 28 hours in jail before she could 
gather bail money. She's been indicted and is awaiting trial.

Mellown knows some would argue prison space should be reserved for violent 
offenders. But addicts often drive while they're high. They supervise their 
children. Billing insurance or Medicaid for their drugs raises health-care 
costs. Addicts consume law enforcement time when they pass forged 
prescriptions or buy pills illegally.

"It gets hugely frustrating," Mellown says. "There's a limit to what I can 
do, and when they don't get any penalties for what happens, it becomes a 
systemic problem."

Law enforcement officials in Durham were so determined to strengthen the 
penalties for abusers they worked with the State Bureau of Investigation to 
see if they could impose federal drug trafficking charges in OxyContin 
cases. The Sheriff's Office and the SBI figured how much OxyContin they 
needed to find to impose trafficking charges, punishable by up to 20 years 
in prison.

The time in jail earlier this year frightened Ferguson. She has three 
children, ages 3, 7 and 10, and she's promising to clean up.

"My kids are more important to me than anyone in the world, and I don't 
want to lose them," she says one spring afternoon. "They're worth changing 
for."

Mellown isn't sure she'll do it.

"Nothing we can do to her," he says, "is worse than not having those pills."

In late June, Ferguson was arrested in Alamance County, west of Durham, on 
charges of felony possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia. She's 
scheduled to go to court later this month. She's being held in the Alamance 
County Jail on $10,000 bond.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth