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

'WHEN OXYCONTIN CAME OUT, IT CAME OUT BIG IN LANCASTER'

LANCASTER, S.C. - No one knows exactly when OxyContin came to Lancaster 
County, or why abuse of the drug so quickly struck this quiet community on 
South Carolina's northern border.

But law enforcement and addiction experts say dozens of people in 
neighborhoods across Lancaster took part in the OxyContin drug trade 
beginning in early 2000.

Gerald Ghent had a wife, two young children and a job for 12 years in a 
local plant when he was indicted last year on federal drug possession charges.

Police say he had been traveling to a Myrtle Beach pain clinic, receiving 
thousands of OxyContin pills and other narcotics, and reselling them in 
Lancaster. He was sentenced in January to three years in federal prison.

"I was blinded by the whole thing," says his mother, Vivian. "I thought as 
long as he was going to work and he had a pretty normal home life, he was OK."

Lancaster, hometown of Gov. Jim Hodges, is a textile community south of 
Charlotte with about 61,000 residents. Many mill jobs are gone, replaced by 
work at a battery factory and at retailers like Kmart and Wal-Mart. 
Lancaster is filled with families who stay for generations. Funerals draw 
hundreds; high school football teams are backed by fans who travel to every 
out-of-town game.

The community didn't even have a full-time narcotics officer until 1991. In 
2000, worried about the spread in OxyContin abuse, local law enforcement 
joined forces with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Investigators say they learned the source of much of Lancaster's illicit 
OxyContin was a pain clinic some three hours away in Myrtle Beach. That's 
where Ghent and at least 50 others were going, police say, monthly and 
sometimes more.

One was 63-year-old tax accountant Curtis Cooper.

Cooper was sentenced in February to 57 months in federal prison for 
conspiring to distribute OxyContin and other drugs. Police say he'd sell 
them right out of his tax office, and sometimes allowed clients to trade 
their tax refunds for drugs.

"He was probably making more money out of the pill business than the tax 
business," says Lt. Bill Murphy, with the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office.

Cooper and his attorney would not comment.

His house and tax office sit in a suburb decorated with bird feeders and 
wind chimes. It's a world away from what Lancaster residents call Mill 
Hill, a neighborhood of condemned houses and boarded up stores butting up 
against Springs Industries. That's where police say Marion Blackwell sold 
OxyContin.

An unemployed mill worker, Blackwell tried to make a living scavenging for 
cans and selling aluminum for 30 cents a pound. He lived in an abandoned 
barber shop without electricity or plumbing.

Eventually, police say, he started paying Medicaid patients $9 for their 
OxyContin pills. Blackwell would resell them for $40 apiece -- pocketing 
$31 profit, per pill. He pleaded guilty to drug charges.

"You've got to make a living, I guess," says Blackwell, now living in a 
nearby town.

Police say OxyContin in Lancaster spread from friend to friend, neighbor to 
neighbor, pool halls to parties. It even hit law enforcement circles.

In August 2000, former narcotics officer Barry Todd Sullivan tried to trade 
cocaine for OxyContin from an undercover officer. He pleaded guilty and was 
sentenced to 33 months in federal prison.

Marianne Taylor tried OxyContin at a party. She was 20, and had a young boy 
to raise. Taylor got sick and eventually refused to try OxyContin again, 
but says some of her friends continued to abuse the drug.

"When OxyContin came out, it came out big in Lancaster," Taylor says. 
"There's not a lot to do here for teen-agers. People go to parties where 
someone comes in and tells them there's something new to try. It gets 
bigger and bigger."

At the Lancaster Recovery Center, OxyContin abuse quickly became the most 
pressing concern among staff.

Counselors say they've treated more and more people who started taking 
OxyContin for chronic pain. They came to the Recovery Center to wean 
themselves off of the drug.

"OxyContin was replacing cocaine and everything else that we were seeing," 
says Mary Norris, assistant director at the Recovery Center at Springs 
Memorial Hospital. "It was like gold (to abusers)."
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