Pubdate: Fri, 01 Feb 2002
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: John-Thor Dahlburg, Times Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?186 (Oxycontin)

JURORS CONVICT PHYSICIAN IN OXYCONTIN DEATHS

MIAMI -- The potent mix of pills including the controversial drug 
OxyContin became known as "Graves' cocktails." The parking lot at the 
doctor's office was jammed by patients awaiting their turn for a 
prescription.

"You've got to realize something's wrong when outside your office, 
people are having tailgate parties," Assistant State Atty. Russell 
Edgar said.

On Tuesday, a jury in the Florida Panhandle town of Milton agreed, 
finding Dr. James Graves guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of four 
of his patients from overdoses. The 55-year-old's conviction was 
believed to be the first for a physician in deaths linked to abuse of 
OxyContin, a synthetic opiate. Graves, who had been Florida's No. 1 
prescriber of the powerful painkiller, was also convicted of 
racketeering and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. He now 
faces up to 30 years in prison.

Graves had maintained under oath that he had no idea his patients 
were abusing drugs and that no one would have died if his patients 
had taken their medication as he prescribed.

"OxyContin is a good drug if taken properly," H.E. Ellis Jr., the 
doctor's defense attorney, said. "Pharmacy companies don't spend 
billions of dollars developing drugs if they are going to kill 
people."

But the prosecution claimed Graves was desperate for money after he 
lost jobs in the Navy, a Pensacola clinic and a state prison. When 
word got around that the physician allegedly was indiscriminately 
prescribing drugs, the patients--and money--began rolling in. Among 
addicts, "word spread that he was the go-to doctor," Edgar told the 
jury in his summation Monday. "He is no different than a drug dealer."

The prosecutor estimated that Graves had been grossing $500,000 a 
year from patients he saw at his pain management offices in his 
hometown of Pace, Fla., north of Pensacola, and Brewton, Ala.

According to drug abuse experts, addicts can obtain a heroin-like 
high by chewing OxyContin pills or crushing them to make a solution 
for intravenous injection.

Suspicious of Graves' motives, more than 20 area pharmacists 
testified that they had stopped filling prescriptions for what they 
dubbed "Graves' cocktails"--a mix of OxyContin, painkillers, 
tranquilizers and muscle relaxants.

In his three days on the witness stand, Graves said that he was bound 
to take his patients at their word when they said they were suffering 
and needed drugs to alleviate the pain. "'It is a risk you have to 
accept when treating these patients," the doctor said. "They are 
deserving of treatment of their pain."
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