Pubdate: Wed, 01 Mar 2006
Source: Des Moines Register (IA)
Copyright: 2006 The Des Moines Register.
Contact:  http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123
Author: Tony Leys, Staff Writer

FORMER ADDICT - DUPING DOCTORS 'SIMPLE'

You'd be surprised how easy it is to con a doctor into believing that 
you need narcotics for pain, Joe Leonetti says.

He should know. Before he became sober last June, the Des Moines man 
supplemented his methamphetamine habit with OxyContin, Vicodin and 
other powerful prescription drugs. He says he obtained many of the 
pills by going to emergency rooms or medical clinics and spinning a 
tale of back pain or other hard-to-diagnose ailments. "It's really, 
really simple," he says.

Addicts swap tips on which doctors are the most gullible, he says, 
and on how to avoid detection. For instance, he says, physicians tend 
to become suspicious if patients ask for a specific brand of 
narcotic, and many doctors seem more likely to believe women than men.

Leonetti says some doctors started him out on less-potent, 
non-narcotic medications and sent him to physical-therapy sessions. 
He pretended to go along with those measures. "Then, you just say it 
isn't working, and they'll give you something stronger," he says.

Leonetti, 29, has been through addiction treatment twice. The first 
time, in 1994, he met just one person who had been abusing 
prescription narcotics. Last year, when he re-entered treatment, 
about half the people he met had been abusing such pills. Many of 
them had obtained the drugs by doctor-shopping, or by buying pills 
from people who had duped physicians.

He says narcotics can provide a high similar to heroin.

"You don't feel any pain, that's for sure," he says. "You get all 
warm and fuzzy. You know that feeling you get right before you fall 
asleep? It's just like that."

But as his habit developed, he needed more and more pills to get any 
result. Coming off them was terrible, he says. "I felt like I was 
going to die."

Leonetti, who is thinking about training as an addiction counselor, 
still attends treatment sessions at United Community Services, an 
addiction-recovery center near downtown Des Moines. He wants Iowans 
to know that doctor-shopping is a common and spreading problem that 
enables addicts to self-destruct.

His counselor, Mike Brazelton, says Leonetti's descriptions of the 
practice fit what he hears from many other clients. Both men favor a 
proposed state system that would automatically track the addictive 
medications that Iowans buy. Supporters say doctors and pharmacists 
could check the registry to see whether their patients were obtaining 
multiple orders of drugs.

"I think it's going to do a lot of people a lot of good," Leonetti says.

Leonetti says he wound up in treatment last year after being arrested 
for domestic abuse, which he says was related to his drug addiction. 
He says he never worried about being arrested for scamming doctors, 
even though the practice is illegal.

At one point, Leonetti says, his health insurer balked at paying for 
a prescription because he had already filled so many orders. But no 
one reported him to the police. Addicts don't fear prosecution, he 
says, unless they do something blatant, such as sell pills or forge a 
prescription.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone acknowledges that addicts rarely 
are charged with a crime for doctor-shopping. "We probably have 
prosecuted a case or so, but that's probably the exception, not the 
rule," he says.

Sarcone says the practice is clearly illegal, but the proof can be 
hard to come by. For one thing, he says, doctors are bound by 
patient-confidentiality rules, which can prevent them from sharing 
information with law officers.

Also, he says, prosecutors would have to prove a patient 
intentionally lied about pain, which could be daunting. He says the 
proposed tracking system could help provide solid evidence of fraud.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman