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