Pubdate: Wed, 27 Mar 2002
Source: Deseret News (UT)
Copyright: 2002 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  http://www.desnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/124
Author: Pat Reavy

WHITE, MIDDLE CLASS HOUSEWIFE - HOOKED ON LORTAB

FARMINGTON - "Mary" looks like your stereotypical Utah housewife.

The 34-year old, who asked that her real name not be used, grew up in a 
strong LDS home. She was the Young Women's president in her ward. She is 
the mother of five children. She has never touched a drop of alcohol, and 
growing up she never saw an illegal drug.

Mary is not the type of person you'd expect to see standing trial for 
felony drug possession. And she is definitely not the type you would 
suspect of being a hard-core addict.

But for several years Mary was addicted to Lortab and several other 
painkiller medications. Before she was caught she was taking up to 50 pills 
a day. Sometimes she would take so many pills at once that they would 
become lodged in her throat and she'd force herself to throw up to clear 
her esophagus. She was so addicted, however, that she would pick the pills 
out of her vomit and swallow them again.

On another occasion, Mary cut a Lortab pill in half and was caught by her 
husband licking the dust off the dresser where she had just cut the pill.

"I devoted my life to drugs," said Mary, who wanted the name "Mary" used 
for this article because she and others like her were referred to as "Mary 
Poppin Pills" in jail.

Mary's addiction to Lortab highlights a growing problem in Utah and the 
United States. About a quarter of the people enrolled in the Davis County 
Drug Court program are there for Lortab and other prescription medication 
addiction, said Davis County Sheriff's detective John Carter.

"It's probably the legal drug of choice," concurred Adult Probation and 
Parole spokesman Bradley Bassi. "It's one of the most prevalently abused 
legal drugs."

DEA resident agent-in-charge Barry Jamison said his office has seen limited 
Lortab problems in Utah over the past several months but added, "We know 
the history of this drug. It has exploded in other areas. It hasn't 
exploded here yet, but it has the potential."

What sets Lortab abusers apart from typical cocaine and heroin addicts is 
the type of people who abuse the drug. Drug agents say Lortab abusers come 
from every race, every sex, every income level and every social status.

Lortab is an opiate like Vicodin, another abused painkiller medication. The 
most common abuser is a Caucasian woman between the ages of 20 and 40.

In Mary's case, she used her LDS background to her advantage. She said she 
would purposely seek out LDS doctors and sit in their lobby reading an LDS 
Church magazine. "They would give me anything I wanted.

"We're little Mormon women. What could we possibly be doing wrong?" she 
said in a sarcastic voice.

As her abuse grew, so did her guilt. Mary said she would teach a lesson 
about the Word of Wisdom in her Young Women's class while high on Lortab. 
Then she would go home and pop more pills to help her deal with the guilt.

Mary started abusing Lortab after the birth of her fifth child. She quickly 
learned that she could fake a headache and make it last for a long time. 
Soon she began to come up with a number of illnesses. "I'd find out which 
(illnesses) could be diagnosed," she said.

She could stretch an appendicitis for two months' worth of Lortab 
prescriptions. Ovarian cysts, kidney stones, back pains. Mary said she 
could commonly fake any of the three and get more Lortab pills because 
doctors didn't check the validity of her illness. "Doctors won't touch your 
back," she said.

Mary later learned the dentist was another source for Lortab. She would 
make a toothache last for months.

Other women told the Deseret News they would get root canals they didn't 
need just to get the prescription.

Some people have let their teeth rot on purpose so they could get a 
prescription for the powerful painkiller, Carter said.

In another incident, Carter said he knew a woman who purposely threw 
herself down a flight of stairs and broke her femur just to get more Lortab.

To keep up with her increasing craving for Lortab, Mary would do what is 
referred to as "doctor shopping." At one point she was seeing 26 doctors at 
the same time and getting painkiller prescriptions from all of them.

At the height of her abuse, Mary said she started calling in her own Lortab 
prescriptions. She would call pharmacies and shuffle papers in the 
background to make it sound like she was calling from a doctor's office. It 
was a pharmacy that had caller ID however, that finally brought Mary's scam 
to an end.

Mary said it's not hard to scam a doctor, and some doctors agree with her.

Dr. Michael Crookston, medical director of LDS Hospital's Dayspring drug 
and alcohol treatment program and one of only two certified addiction 
psychiatrists in the state, believes doctors need to be more educated on 
the signs of addiction to prevent being scammed.

But Michael Ashburn, medical director of the pain program at University 
Hospital and the current president of the American Pain Society, said there 
is no significant data to show whether physicians are being used as the 
primary source of Lortab abuse. He said some of the abused drug is being 
smuggled into the United States from Mexico.

Both Ashburn and Crookston said Lortab is becoming more prevalent on the 
street as underground rings are developed to distribute the drug.

Some Lortab abusers resort to stealing the drug, although such cases are 
rare, Ashburn said.

"Jen," who is currently serving time in the Davis County Jail and also 
asked that her real name not be used, is one of that minority.

Jen's creative solution to feeding her addiction to prescription drugs was 
to go to real estate open houses and then ask to use the bathroom. While 
she was in there, she would search the medicine cabinet for pills.

Dusty Bell freely admits to her love of painkillers.

She has loved them for 30 years, since she broke her leg skiing as a 
16-year-old growing up in Sun Valley, Idaho, the privileged daughter of an 
Olympic skier.

"Part of it was growing up in the '60s environment," she said. But a bigger 
part was that she was hooked and she knew it. By the time she was 22 she 
was doing whatever it took to get the pills.

She was an addict while working as a firefighter. She was an addict while 
she worked as a 911 police dispatcher.

"There were periods of sobriety," she said, but not many and they didn't 
last. "Invariably I screw things up."

Dusty later went to prison for prescription fraud and forgery. She moved to 
Utah four years ago for methadone treatments that are still illegal in 
Idaho. The methadone has kept her off the prescription pills and her 
occasional dabbling in heroin, but she's still not happy.

"Methadone is a drug and it affects you like a drug, a very powerful drug," 
she said. "I am high right now, and I don't get to the point of clarity 
very often. I am definitely not where I want to be."

"Pam" is another member of drug court program who asked that her real name 
not be used. In addition to being a Lortab abuser like Mary, she was also 
an alcoholic. Her husband had her arrested six times for public 
intoxication inside her own house, she said.

Pam said her Lortab abuse and alcoholism were so bad that she used to pray 
at night that she would be caught because she knew that was the only way 
she'd stop.

Pam's substance abuse problems reached a climax on the night she took 
several Lortab pills and drank an entire bottle of whiskey. She said she 
was so high that she jumped out of her second-story window, landing on her 
head. But rather than allowing anyone to assist her, she ran into a nearby 
field to hide, she said.

Later, she went back to her home and crawled into the doghouse in the back 
yard, where she was eventually discovered by a police K-9 unit.

Both Mary and Pam said even after they were arrested they initially refused 
to put themselves in the same class as heroin and cocaine users. "I don't 
belong here," went through both of their minds as they went from court to jail.

"It's not a sin," was Pam's original way of thinking. "It's doctor 
approved. You can get it from your neighbor."

Mary graduated from drug court in August 2001. Pam is scheduled to graduate 
in September. Mary is continuing her rehab in a treatment program and works 
with volunteer groups.

What Mary saw in jail and in her treatment program were eye-opening. So 
far, it has been enough to scare her into staying straight.

There were 26 people in the beginning of the treatment program she was in 
after she got out of jail. Of those 26, four are now dead from overdoses 
and the remaining 22 are using drugs again, she said.

Now, Mary says, she can spot a Lortab abuser right away and she believes 
the problem is much more prevalent than what is being reported.

Crookston doesn't believe the solution is to put additional restrictions on 
Lortab. "It hasn't changed the availability of heroin," he said. "I think 
the vast majority of people are using these medications appropriately."

An increasing number of doctors have become wary about over prescribing 
Lortab, however. And some patients have to jump through several hoops 
before they can get the pills they need, Crookston said. "The solution is 
to have more treatment available for people who are developing a problem."
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