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Show r i V f . 1 ' , 1 ,-- I -i . f - - i 'j - - i u . ; - :A & . i I cr. ? : rU,. - ' j. o s 7 j k" i r . ;; . 1 .v- r li ' " ' v - - i; ' - i . ' ,4 ; . . t v $ . . 'i j i ' . ;N - . I - ; i ; i DRUG INVENTORY is taken by Business Regulation official, Steve Davis, center, before drugs are destroyed. Officer Joe Pho.o by S'.n Walln Boren and Trey Wade assist during the inventory. Investigator keeps tab on health practisioners Steve Davis, Department of Business Regulation, has more to do than destroy drugs for law enforcement enforce-ment agencies. During one of the more mundane duties of his position, inventorying and destroying drugs and drug paraphernalia parapher-nalia confiscated by Vernal City Police, Davis explained that the bulk of the job is to investigate licenced health care practitioners. There are three investigators in the Department of Business Regulation who make regular visits throughout Utah. The majority of investigation by the Department of Business Regulation starts with a drug or pharmacies. "The pharmacist is our best watch dog on any illegal drug use," Davis said. The most common violation of drugs by doctors and dentists, Davis said, is giving drugs in return for favors: money, sex or status or the use of drugs themselves. In the Vernal area, Davis said that recent audits have shown a little over-prescribing over-prescribing by doctors, but the major problems are several people pumping doctors for drugs. Their investigation of health care practices overlapses into the conduct of doctors and dentists, and also to investigate in-vestigate quackery. There is little quackery in the Ver nal area compared to the large concentrations con-centrations of quackery in the Provo-Orem Provo-Orem area. But there may be a problem pro-blem with mid-wifes, Davis said. Recently Davis was involved in a dialysis investigation on the Wasatch Front, where a dialysis center was over-treating patients or treating them when they didn't need it. The major penalty the Business Regulation Department can levy is pulling the offender's license. But the department is involved in any misconduct miscon-duct by health care professionals. During Davis' audit of the police department's drugs confiscated over the past three years, over $50,000 in drugs and paraphernalia were destroyed. |
