Four thousand milligrams

Her name was C.W. and she was addicted to Demerol. I had found her prescriptions in more than a dozen different pharmacies because of her drug of choice and her distinctive writing style. No, she wasn’t a doctor but she wrote scripts as well as some, better than most.

Demerol tablets were available in three strengths, but when you are addicted you ‘need’ and want the most potent. She was predictable. She never tried to be tricky and specify the generic name “meperidine”. Her trademark was simplicity: “Demerol — 100 Mg — # 40”.

Federal law places all controlled substances into categories or schedules based upon their accepted medical use, potential for abuse and their ability to create physical and psychological dependency. Schedule I drugs are illegal to possess and have no current accepted medical use in the United States.

Demerol is defined as a Schedule II drug because of its strength and severe addictive nature and propensity for abuse. As you would expect, there are stringent regulations governing Schedule II medication prescriptions. However, in a community with 52 pharmacies, it was not too difficult to maintain a 4,000 milligram-a-day habit.

Catching someone doing 4000 milligrams a day is also not too difficult. C.W.’s husband had actively recruited C.W. and two other females into his drug ring after getting them addicted to Demerol and other prescription drugs. A surveillance team watched C.W.’s husband drive the females around to different pharmacies and watched the females take turns passing the forged prescriptions that C.W. had written. The scripts went in, the drugs came out. They were good, because they practiced doing it EVERYDAY.

The surveillance team dropped a narcotic detective off at each pharmacy and obtained the information on who had passed which script and obtained what drugs. After four stops, we got nervous about the start of commuter traffic and the possibility of losing them, so we stopped them and made the arrests. “Four in custody, one vehicle and a large quantity of prescription drugs seized.”

One of the joys of working narcotics is ‘asset forfeiture’. Any vehicle used for transportation in drug trafficking and any assets obtained or purchased from the proceeds of trafficking drugs is subject to seizure by the arresting agency. The district attorney had set up a special asset forfeiture unit and they were good at what they did. Their coordinated efforts with the IRS were legendary. Watching the smiling arrogance of a dealer turn sickly pale as an IRS investigator attaches a lien on all of his/her cars, toys and property is a priceless moment.

After the arrest, I went to the jail to interview C.W. She was a mess! Her physical health was OBVIOUSLY failing. Forty 100 mg tablets of Demerol would kill any two or three normal people. She had built up an extremely high tolerance for the drug; however, she looked like the pictures of the holocaust victims of World War II.

Her prosecution and withdrawal from the drug were only the beginning of her troubles. C.W.’s home was a chaotic wreck like her body. Child Protective Services took away her three children and put them in a far safer place.

Some of the most commonly abused prescription drugs are Oxycodone, Oxycontin, Lortab or Hydrocodone, Methadone, Ritalin, steroids, and amphetamines. There are several classes of medications that create other ‘effects’ but the two principle classes competing for addicts are the depressants (pain killers) and the stimulants.

Studies indicate that the abuse of prescription medications is growing faster than the abuse of most illicit drugs. The scope of prescription abuse and addiction is nationally and locally understated and underreported. WHY?

RATIONALIZATION: There is the attitude that if it is legal it is not dangerous. Drunk drivers use this one too.

DENIAL: “Drug abuse and addiction happens in other families, not mine.” “My son is just going through a hard time right now.” “I can quit anytime I want.” “I am in control.” “I am only going to the convenience store.”

I had a traffic stop a few years ago with a driver that had mixed Lortabs with alcohol. Neither were taken in sufficient strength to impair, but when taken together on top of the fatigue present, gave me a driver who almost hit a concrete barrier and could not walk a straight line or stand on one leg.

We need to understand that prescription drugs are dangerous because of their pharmaceutical quality and strength. Methadone is more addictive than heroin. People become complacent in the quantity of prescription drugs they take, not realizing they may be developing a tolerance for the drug.

The quality of pharmaceutical drugs is obviously much better than the drugs that are cooked in the squalor of an illicit meth lab or in the jungles of Columbia. There are increasing reports that street drugs (including marijuana) are being laced with other drugs, especially ‘designer’ drugs and methamphetamine, with the intent of creating an addicted customer base.

I’m happy to report to you that there was a successful conclusion to the C.W. story. A couple of years after her arrest my phone buzzed that there was someone at the front desk asking to see me. “You don’t recognize me do you?”

A career moment for me. We do not get many people searching us out to thank us for sending them to prison. C.W. believed that going to prison saved her life. I agreed. Several months later, I got a phone call from her telling me how she had rebonded with her parents and they were helping her get a job and regain custody of her children. She was putting her life back together, minus Mr. W. and the Demerol.

It was about this same time however, that a law enforcement associate of mine lost his daughter to a drug overdose. It was not heroin or meth. She was a codeine addict. Her drug of choice was Tussionex, a Schedule III cough syrup with codeine. She died at 3 a.m. one morning in the bedroom of the pharmacist who was supplying it to her. The only good news was that the pharmacist soon joined Mr. W. in our prison system.

You win some and you lose some.

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Sgt. Foster Mayo is a retired Bonners Ferry Police Department deputy chief. He previously worked for the Salt Lake police department. He continues to serve as a volunteer reserve sergeant with the Boundary County Sheriff’s Office.