Prescriptions for pain pills -- and the doctors who issue them -- are getting closer scrutiny in Louisiana.

Just weeks after one Baton Rouge physician admitted writing illegal prescriptions and another was arrested, federal and local law-enforcement authorities say they are investigating more such cases in the community.

At the same time, state regulatory agencies are developing a database to track prescriptions -- making it easier to investigate physicians and identify patients who may be "doctor shopping," or getting medicine from multiple physicians and pharmacies.

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About 60 Arrests Recorded In Area Since July

For help Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous meets at 8 p.m. every Thursday in a separate building at First Baptist Church in Logansport.

LOGANSPORT -- Sissy Morris was a mother on a mission in July. Tired of the rampant illegal drug activity in her community and anguished over her adult son's addiction to the substances, she rallied friends and neighbors into waging their own war of sorts against drug dealers.

Fast-forwarding almost a year finds Morris just as determined but now more low-key. She can relax now that she sees visible results from the heightened emphasis on ridding neighborhood streets of drug traffickers.

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But Council Grappling With Program Rules

St. John the Baptist Parish is moving forward with plans to reinstate its random drug-testing program, but officials are still undecided about which employees will be required to submit to the testing.

At its June 14 meeting, the Parish Council unanimously authorized the parish administration to request bids from companies to conduct random drug tests on parish employees. The parish has about 208 full-time employees who could be required to submit to testing, said Natalie Robottom, the parish's chief administrative officer.

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Compromise Bill Sent To Governor

BATON ROUGE -- Stores and pharmacies should be barred from selling more than three packs at a time of any powdered sinus or cold medication that contains ephedrine, a substance used in making the highly addictive crystal methamphetamine, lawmakers agreed Thursday.

The Senate voted 30-0 for a compromise version of Senate Bill 24 by Sen. James David Cain, R-Dry Creek, and the House went along with it, 98-5.

Attachment: http://www.mapinc.org/temp/spacer.gif Cain's bill now goes to Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who can sign it into law, let it become law without her name on it or veto it.

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Legislation Inspired By Erath Mother Whose Son Overdosed

State Sen. Nick Gautreaux's bill to increase penalties for oxycodone-related violations passed the House of Representatives with a unanimous vote Friday. It will now head back to the Senate for a concurrence vote, and then to the governor's desk for a signature.

Gautreaux, D-Abbeville, said Friday he's glad the bill passed and that penalties for abusing oxycodone - which makes up the prescription painkiller OxyContin and other drugs - will be as stiff as those for cocaine.

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WASHINGTON --The methamphetamine epidemic is draining money and resources from communities large and small.

Local officials who had not even heard of the drug five years ago are being forced to shift budget priorities to pay for everything from dental care for meth-addicted jail inmates to foster care for children whose parents have been arrested for running a meth lab.

The additional financial burden comes at a time when many states are struggling to balance their budgets and the federal government is cutting back funding for local drug-fighting programs.

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Powerfully addictive drug damages families, jobs and ability to function normally

WASHINGTON -- Whether it's smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected, methamphetamine is more addictive and more damaging to the brain than cocaine, heroin and most other illegal drugs.

It also is unusually efficient at ruining lives, ensnaring entire families and turning parents and children into addicts fixated only on their next euphoric high.

"If the adults use it, the kids are going to be around it and get roped in," said Dr. William Haning, director of the Addiction Psychiatry Residency Program for the University of Hawaii's medical school. "As crazy as this sounds, the parent won't necessarily see this as a bad thing."

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Eight Sheriff's Office Deputies Reassigned

Col. Greg Phares, chief criminal deputy for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, announces Friday that 7 pounds of marijuana and a small amount of methamphetamine are missing from the narcotics division. One deputy resigned, eight others were disciplined and the division has new leadership.

The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office narcotics division has new leadership after 7 pounds of marijuana and less than a gram of methamphetamine turned up missing.

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Mother Campaigns For Stiffer Punishments For Oxycontin Abuse.

ERATH - Susan Cassidy has been on a crusade. She wants people in Acadiana, and across the state, to know how dangerous the prescription painkiller OxyContin is when abused, and she wants the people who take and distribute the drug illegally to face more jail time.

Cassidy's goal could be realized today, when the state House of Representatives considers a bill to stiffen the penalties for drug violations related to oxycodone, the drug that makes up OxyContin and other similar painkillers.

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Four narcotics investigators and one uniformed patrol deputy in the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office have been suspended without pay as part of an investigation into whether evidence was mishandled, a top administrator said Wednesday.

The agency opened an administrative investigation last week into allegations that employees may have failed to "properly secure and document evidence," said Col. Greg Phares, chief criminal deputy for the Sheriff's Office.

Two investigators have been transferred out of the narcotics division; the other two remain assigned there, Phares said.

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Other Charges Expected When Grand Jury Meets Next Week

Opelousas Police Chief Larry Caillier is expected to enter a plea of not guilty when he is arraigned later this week on five charges of malfeasance in office.

"He will not appear in person. He will wave his appearance. He came in this morning to sign a motion," Caillier's attorney Edward Lopez said Monday.

The arraignment, which is a formal reading of the charges, is set for 9 a.m. Friday before 27th Judicial District Court Judge Alonzo Harris.

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We now have an answer to the question of whether U.S. agents should knock down doors and bat the reefer from the fingers of cancer patients. Yes! By all means, yes. The Supremes have ruled that federal anti-weed laws must trump individual states' laws on medicinal marijuana. So much for the idea that the states are the laboratories of democracy.

Of course, this doesn't mean they can be the meth labs of democracy.

But is medical marijuana such a threat? We'll get to that.

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As state police stood near two rows of rental cars, they waited for an anxious drug-sniffing canine to prove what they already knew.

Although drug traffickers commonly use rental vehicles to move drugs from place to place, it's not so prevalent that a drug dog will alert on any rental lot in any city.

That recently circulated statement caused some concern for state police who feared it might effect future drug cases, said Sgt. Don Campbell.

"I don't want a jury or the general public who (has) ever rented a car to think a canine is going to alert on any car in the lot," he said. "The problem we don't want to run into is anyone thinking a canine is going to alert just because it's a rental car."

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Summonses Issued To Owner, Manager

Kenner authorities have shuttered a Chateau Boulevard pain management clinic and summoned its owner and manager to court on charges of operating without a license, police said Friday.

Officers said the Code Enforcement Department issued summonses to owner Georgette Fleming, 46, of Waggaman and manager Derrick C. Williams, 27, of New Orleans for operating a business without an occupational license. A customer, Bonnie Reel, 44, of Kenner, was booked with possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia after police at the clinic found her with three small bags of cocaine, said Capt. Steve Caraway, a Police Department spokesman.

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Beauregard Memorial Hospital's Brown Bag Lesson for May focused on the growing problem of methamphetamines in the parish.

The lesson, conducted by BMH emergency department medical director Dr. John McMillan and Lt. Craig Richard of the DeRidder Police Department Thursday afternoon, educated members of the community and BMH personnel on the dangers of the drug as well as warning signs of usage.

"Meth is on a slow rise," Lt. Richard said. "It's a very addictive drug and the worst I've seen in 12 years of law enforcement."

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Friends knew him to be an upstanding Christian, but there was another side to Cliff Rivera. Lately, the Mandeville man had been holding up pharmacies - -- up to three a day -- to get pills he craved to relieve searing, chronic pain. After the last robbery, police shot him when he appeared to point a gun at them. Sunday, May 22, 2005 By Paul Rioux St. Tammany bureau

Cliff Rivera's aching back had gotten so bad a year ago that he lay facedown on the floor at his church group meeting as the other members knelt around him and prayed for God to ease the chronic pain.

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AMITE -- The Tangipahoa Parish Council on Monday unanimously approved two measures that set moratoriums on the opening of any so-called pain management centers.

After hearing from Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards and Coroner Rick Foster about the potential danger such centers pose to the parish's residents, the council adopted a 30-day "emergency" measure that prohibits the granting of occupancy or occupations permits or licenses by any parish department or agency for pain management centers.

The council then introduced and set for public hearing a similar ordinance that establishes a six-month moratorium on the permitting of pain management centers. This measure states that building and occupation permits or licenses cannot be issued to any business whose "primary focus or concentration is the prescribing and dispensing of pain medication to individuals with complaints of chronic pain which is unaffiliated with any hospital or facility for the treatment of the terminally ill."

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2 Bills Would Restrict Sales of Sinus Pills

BATON ROUGE -- With little debate Monday, lawmakers passed two competing bills to restrict the sale of over-the-counter cold or sinus medication that can be used as ingredients in making the addictive drug crystal methamphetamine.

House Bill 29 by Rep. Eric Lafleur, D-Ville Platte, which has stricter penalties for the sale of more than three packs of medications that include ephedrine, pseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine, cleared the House 103-0 and now goes to the Senate.

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Look but don't eat.

Making it illegal to use morning glories and angel trumpets as hallucinogens has proved troublesome for legislators.

Rep. Michael Strain is trying to outlaw all but the aesthetic use of such plants. And Sen. James David Cain, in another attempt to stop drug abuse, wants to keep over-the-counter cold medicine from being used to make highly addictive methamphetamine.

Both men will continue their efforts this week: Strain in a House committee, Cain on the Senate floor.

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It's the icky stuff drugs do to your body that fifth-grader Sarah Martinelli wants to avoid. And that's a choice the St. Joseph Catholic School student is certain she'll keep making after graduating from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program Tuesday.

Martinelli is one of 42 students from St. Joseph and one of thousands in Caddo and Bossier parishes who have graduated from the extended D.A.R.E. program for fifth-graders since 1991. Students in kindergarten through fourth grade are introduced to the topics with short visitations from the officer-led program.

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