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Seniors Charged With Selling Prescriptions

faris

faris

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 26, 2002
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Seniors Charged With Selling Prescriptions

By ROGER ALFORD, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 17 minutes ago



PRESTONSBURG, Ky. - Dottie Neeley, 87, was fingerprinted, photographed and thrown in jail, imprisoned as much by the tubing from her oxygen tank as by the concrete and steel around her.

The woman — who spent two days in jail after her arrest last December — is among a growing number of Kentucky senior citizens charged in a crackdown on a crime authorities say is rampant in Appalachia: Elderly people are reselling their painkillers and other medications to addicts.

"When a person is on Social Security, drawing $500 a month, and they can sell their pain pills for $10 apiece, they'll take half of them for themselves and sell the other half to pay their electric bills or buy groceries," Floyd County jailer Roger Webb said.

Since April 2004, Operation UNITE, a Kentucky anti-drug task force crated largely in response to rampant abuse of the powerful and sometimes lethal painkiller OxyContin, has charged more than 40 people 60 or older with selling primarily prescription drugs in the mountains.

"It used to be a rare occasion to have an elderly inmate," Webb said. "Five years ago it was a rarity."

Local jails are having to bear the increased cost of caring for old and often sickly inmates.

"You've got to give them more attention," Webb said. "It's putting a strain on my deputies. We're understaffed anyway. You've got to get them doctors, and meet their medical needs."

Researchers suspect the problem is not limited to Appalachia.

Elderly people "may be looking for a way to bring in a little extra money," said Erin Artigiani, deputy director of the University of Maryland Center for Substance Abuse Research. "We haven't heard a lot about senior citizens being a source of those drugs. We know college students do this. It's not much a stretch to think that seniors could do it, too."

Dr. Anita Cornett, a physician in Hyden, said one of her patients, a reformed drug addict, told her that he bought all his drugs not from a known dealer, but from elderly people.

Cornett said she does random drug screenings to make sure her patients are taking their prescription drugs instead of selling them. In addition, staffers routinely call patients and ask them to bring their prescription bottles in so that the pills can be counted.

The Rev. Doug Abner, pastor of Community Church in Manchester and an anti-drug activist, said senior citizens may not understand the seriousness of selling prescription drugs.

"They justify it because they're having a hard time financially," he said. "Left to ourselves, we can justify anything, but they're really part of the problem."

However, Dan Smoot, a former state police drug detective who heads the task force, said the elderly people being charged are not necessarily struggling to put food on the table.

"Most of the elderly we arrest are merely continuing a family tradition," he said. "It has been part of their culture for a long time."

Neeley, the old woman who was arrested along with her son and his girlfriend, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of trafficking in prescription drugs as well as marijuana.

However, a prosecutor has agreed not to oppose "shock probation" if Neeley enters a guilty plea at her next court appearance, Dec. 29. Under shock probation, a defendant who is unlikely to repeat the crime is released after getting a brief taste of life behind bars.

Her attorney, Terry Jacobs, said the plea bargain would be a gamble, because the judge could decide not to grant her shock probation, and "six months is a death sentence for her."

In a telephone interview, Neeley denied selling drugs. She said she suffers from emphysema and asthma and sometimes uses a wheelchair. She said she was shocked when police arrived to arrest her and made the 4-foot 8-inch, 120-pound woman walk from her house to a cruiser.

"I had to hold my hands up all the way," she said. "They wouldn't let me hold them down."

Her lawyer declined to discuss specifics of the charges. But speaking generally, he said: "You've got a depressed economy. You've got an opportunity for these folks to make money. If you're seeing a disproportionate number of elderly, it's because they are the people who are going to be prescribed most of the drugs."
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article
 
Yea lets put the old 68 year old guy in a wheelchair who lives off a shitty social security check in jail for the remainder of his life.....hmmmm drug reform hint hint.8)
 
"We haven't heard a lot about senior citizens being a source of those drugs."
Click to expand...

Well that's an execellent reason to start cracking down on it and start overflooding the prisons. I mean come on, don't they have bigger issues to worry about?
 
This is ridiculous. period. sometimes people just have to do what they HAVE TO DO. Where's the compassion in this country gone..... oh wait, i forgot.. compassion isn't in the constitution.. GOTTA FOLLOW THAT RULE BOOK.. Regardless of morals.

This is getting ridiculous, this drug war is getting nowhere, -- and the people in charge of it are truly becoming evil.
 
^i think that the drug war is in direct opposition to the spirit of the constitution in hte first place
 
If you're putting 87 year old grannies with oxygen masks in Jail there is something seriously wrong with the system

8(
 
Tell me about it.. I live in the Appalachian Mtns. and the best place to score cheap pills is the old folks retirement castle down the street. Those old people are so desperate to get rid of their painkillers and benzos because they are dirt poor. This article makes me sick to my stomach
 
I love this shit. I think drug dealing is drug dealing. It's all the same . It shows how sick our country is.
 
poor old thing, sick and being forced 2 spend sum of her precious last years in jail because she needed 2 make ends meet
ppl r going 2 score drugs no matter wat, cracking down on harmless old ppl isnt cool
 
Yea!

Go DEA go! You da man! You da hero!!!

Woo hoo! Making the world SAFE from nasty senior citizens.
 
Its about time the old fuckers stop running rampant and making us do drugs. I say givm the CHAIR. the WHEEL chair.
 
So horrible what they doing to this poor old lady. She was trying to get by because the goverment wouldnt help her out so she had to take the other route how dissapointing.
 
^^But this happens in everday society with black whites spanish old and young. At least the government isn't only putting away young ( under 70 heh) in jail. I mean, it shows they mean fucking business. sick bastards though i must say.
 
yeah, and i love how the one cop is complaining about all the extra care elderly people require WHEN YOU TAKE THEM AWAY FROM THEIR CAREGIVERS!!

Local jails are having to bear the increased cost of caring for old and often sickly inmates.

"You've got to give them more attention," Webb said. "It's putting a strain on my deputies. We're understaffed anyway. You've got to get them doctors, and meet their medical needs."

fucking bunch of pricks. :X
 
^ Aww. The poor cops, lets give them more money to make it easier for them.
 
"You've got to give them more attention," Webb said. "It's putting a strain on my deputies. We're understaffed anyway. You've got to get them doctors, and meet their medical needs."

^^ I sort of understand, i mean. I know if i were in a business, and i had to cater to older folks it would suck. At least he reconignizes these people need extra care, instead of just throwing them in jail.
 
^
the whole point is they shouln't be in jail

it's not as if they are going to be fugitives or something if you don' take em away with their hands above their heads
 
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