Pubdate: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 Source: Tucson Citizen (AZ) Copyright: 2001 Tucson Citizen Contact: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/461 Author: Associated Press OXYCONTIN DEATH FUELS DAD'S WAR ON DEALERS Anonymous tips through a website have led to four arrests since the site was launched in May. Strongest Warning Put On Potentially Lethal Drug PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. - It was Super Bowl weekend, and Stevie Steiner was celebrating. The 19-year-old had just moved to Florida and had been calling his father regularly with news about his electrician's job and his plans for the future. The call Steven Steiner Sr. got Jan. 29 was to tell him his eldest son was dead. And there was more: The autopsy found OxyContin in his blood, a prescription narcotic increasingly abused for a heroinlike high. Grieving for his son and outraged that no one was arrested for providing him with the drug, Steiner decided to take on the dealers himself - all drug dealers. Steiner launched a website for a group he called DAMMADD, Dads and Mad Moms Against Drug Dealers (www.dammadd.org). The group takes anonymous tips about drug dealers and manufacturers and passes them on to law enforcement. If a tip leads to an arrest and conviction, the group offers a reward - up to $1,500 if it's a street-level dealer. According to the site, there had been 64 tips in all since it was launched in May and four arrests as of Wednesday morning. "I have to wake up every morning and see his picture in the living room and his urn, and it makes me damn mad," said Steiner, 41, of Tioga Center, N.Y. "That's what gives me the energy. I'm going to make a difference, there's no doubt." In Broome County, the southern New York community near where Steiner lives, about 30 tips have resulted in two arrests. Broome County Sheriff's Detective Vasili Yacalis said the information received from Steiner's organization has been credible and more arrests are coming based on the tips. "I can see if the tips continue a lot of people are going to find themselves in jail," Yacalis said. "He's been a tremendous help." Even Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, the drug linked to Stevie Steiner's death, gave DAMMMAD a $50,000 grant. OxyContin, or oxycodone, is a federally approved painkiller widely prescribed for chronic pain resulting from problems such as arthritis or cancer. One pill is designed to last 12 hours, but when crushed and snorted or injected, it produces a quick high. Witnesses told police that at the party in late January, Stevie Steiner had snorted two OxyContin tablets. His death was one of 26 deaths linked to OxyContin in Palm Beach County during the first four months of 2001, compared to 40 in all of 2000. The drug has been linked to at least 120 overdose deaths nationwide. In what is believed to be the first murder charge related to OxyContin, a man in Virginia pleaded guilty Monday to murder and drug distribution. Robert Stallard, 43, admitted injecting OxyContin into the arm of Nicholas Dickerson, 40, at Stallard's apartment in September. Prosecutors said selling Dickerson the drug and helping him inject it was tantamount to shooting him with a gun. Defense attorney Penny Nimmo said there was no malice and she would seek to reduce the murder charge to manslaughter before next month's sentencing. Stallard faces up to 81 years in prison. In Steiner's case, police couldn't confirm theories about how the young man obtained the drug. The sheriff's office turned its investigation over to the state attorney's office, which agreed that there was no probable cause to arrest anyone, said Detective Richard Carl. "The parents can push all they want; it doesn't change facts," Carl said. "We take facts to the prosecutor, not theories." Steiner is now using his son's death as an example and a warning. The DAMMADD site includes a high school photo of Stevie Steiner and a link to crime-scene photos of his bloated body, with the words: "This is what the drug dealers are really selling you." Steiner said he wanted to illustrate the uglier, deadly effects of drug abuse. He also plans to discuss his son's death when he visits schools to encourage students to stay off drugs. "If we just say, 'Listen, we're not going to be scared of the drug dealers anymore,' we can win" the war against drugs, he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Kirk