Pubdate: Wed, 23 Feb 2005
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author: Bill Estep
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

UPS OFFICES ARE NEW TARGET IN DRUG WAR

Bill Aims To Crack Down On Illicit Pill Shipments

A steady flow of people, some high, picking up prescription pills to
abuse or sell illegally. A drug dealer's house? No -- a United Parcel
Service office in Eastern Kentucky.

Out-of-state Internet pharmacies are the newest pipeline for pills
into the black market in some parts of the state, and authorities have
begun trying to crack down on the problem at the entry points, the
delivery-service distribution offices.

Officers from Operation UNITE and the Kentucky Bureau of
Investigation, assisted by local police, charged a total of nine
customers Friday and Monday evenings at the UPS hub in Hazard, said
Dan Smoot, law-enforcement director for UNITE.

Authorities plan to continue the enforcement effort at other
delivery-service offices in Eastern Kentucky, Smoot said.

On another front, the state House of Representatives yesterday
approved a bill aimed at cracking down on illicit shipments of pills
from Internet pharmacies.

House Bill 343, proposed by Attorney General Greg Stumbo and sponsored
by Rep. Mike Weaver, D-Elizabethtown, would require Internet
pharmacies to register with the state and place a registration number
on packages. The online pharmacies also would have to connect to
KASPER, the state system that tracks prescription drugs, which
authorities can use to investigate suspected abuses.

The bill also would require Kentuckians to prove they've seen a doctor
within six months before delivery of the prescription.

Rep. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, said drug abuse continues to ravage his
district and HB 343 is necessary to close off a key source dealers use
to get pills.

"There's so much abuse with it," he said. "It's amazing what they can
get and how much volume they can get from these out-of-state doctors
from the Internet."

The measure passed 97-0 and now goes to the Senate.

Smoot said he's been surprised at what he's seen since UNITE officers
went out recently for their first evening of surveillance at the
Hazard UPS facility. The first night, he saw two drug deals in the
parking lot; during a two-hour period Friday, dozens of cars wheeled
in so the occupants could pick up pills.

Smoot estimated that 3,000 pills, delivered from Internet pharmacies
in Florida and many destined for illegal sale, flow out of the Hazard
UPS center on a busy night. Friday and Monday, police seized a total
of 15 packages because they were not properly labeled; each contained
60 Xanax sedative pills and 60 painkillers called Lortabs.

"It's the biggest mess I've seen in my 20-odd years of policing,"
Smoot said.

One woman police interviewed Friday had ordered pills through three
different addresses, Smoot said. That's why the customers come to the
delivery offices to pick up the packages; they've ordered under a fake
name or used fake addresses in order to get multiple deliveries, so
the packages couldn't be delivered.

One man told police he didn't have a computer, but that there are
people who order pills over the Internet in the names of others who
then pick them up. Those "customers" then pay the person who actually
placed the order with either money or pills, Smoot said.

During three days of surveillance at Hazard, police saw four cars that
came each day, indicating some people could be picking up packages of
pills every day, Smoot said.

State police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also are
trying to crack down on illicit Internet pill deliveries. For
instance, one investigation involving pills shipped to Kentucky shut
down seven Internet pharmacies in Florida and caused several doctors
to give up their licenses, state police Maj. Mike Sapp said earlier
this month.

Police say the problem of drug trafficking supplied by bogus Internet
pharmacies has grown rapidly, in large part replacing the "pill mills"
run by unscrupulous doctors that federal and state authorities have
worked to shut down.

The charges against the nine people in Hazard included driv-ing while
impaired and illegal possession of controlled substances. No one has
been charged in relation to the drugs they picked up because more work
is needed to verify they used false addresses or names, for instance,
but such charges will be filed, Smoot said.

It is a felony to provide false information to obtain controlled
substances.

David James, head of the KBI, said the agency is trying to track the
source of the pills to see whether the suppliers could be charged.

However, there is not a good tool in state law right now to pursue the
suppliers, pointing up the value of HB 343, James said.

Dan McMackin, a spokes-man for UPS, said the company is concerned
about people using its services to get pills that they might sell
illegally and is cooperating with police on the issue.

Stumbo said the delivery services are helping by identifying people or
families getting a lot of suspected illegal pill deliveries from
out-of-state pharmacies.

If HB 343 becomes law, delivery companies have said they will help
develop a system to flag packages that did not meet the standards
under the law, so that authorities could investigate, Stumbo said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin