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Show Thursday, September 27, 1979 5 Page 3 High Drug Use In Utah Continued From Page 1 tinuousJy surveys specific cities for a three-to-five month period. We look at the drug abusers coming into facilities for help. If, of 100 patients coming into an emergency room, there are 50 there for heroin overdose, well you can tell that heroin is more of a problem than, say aspirin overdose. The DAWN system tells us what controlled drugs people are being treated for, like heroin and PCP." Through this information system, the federal government has pinpointed 18 states that may have drug abuse problems including California, Washington, Wash-ington, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Maine, the District of Columbia, Colum-bia, New Hampshire, New Jersey, , Hawaii, Arizona and Utah. Each state is being supported with manpower man-power and finances to trace the drug traffic within its borders to determine if there is, in fact, illegal channelization. channeliza-tion. "We feel in the DEA, and we have good indicators, that controlled drugs are getting into the wrong hands," Nelson said. "The overall production of drugs in the United States reaches into billions of tablets 20 billion dosage units of controlled drugs are produced annually. Based on our data, we conservatively estimate that 250 to 300 million dosage units are being diverted each year into the illicit market. There are a lot of drug store drugs on the streets and in the hands of abusers, and the problem is, how did they get there." Nelson said the methods of diversion include the theft of drugs from pharmacies and the forging of prescriptions by alert abusers who seize the opportunity to confiscate doctor's prescription pads while backs are turned. But the most prominent method is criminal diversion. "In many instances you have the retail handlers diverting drugs for criminal purposes money," Nelson said. "You may have a pharmacist who alters his records and sells drugs to abusers. Or he may sell a customer a placebo and sell the real prescription for profit. Or there's the physician who takes 60 seconds to see a patient, writes a prescription for whatever he wants, and makes $15 to $20. Those in the drug culture see three, four, five , doctors.yvaday.;! ,r,yv Z,l : . Nelson said some doctors have no criminal intentions, but are duped by a clever abuser into prescribing controlled drugs. It is not uncommon, un-common, Nelson said, for an abuser to complain of vague pains for which the doctor can find no cause, so he prescribes a mild pain reliever. But the patient will say he has been prescribed that drug before, with no effect, and the doctor will offer something a little stronger. "The whole purpose of the scene is to gain the prescription," Nelson said. "Maybe he gets 10 to 15 dosage units, and after a few more visits to other doctors, he now has 120 tablets of one drug that cost him maybe $40. Then he goes out on the street and sells them for $20 apiece." Nelson remarked that some prescription pre-scription rings go to the extent of setting up shop in a room, installing a phone under a fictitious doctor's name, and waiting for a conscientious pharmacist to check up on a prescription prescrip-tion for a controlled substance. The job of the diversion unit will be to discover such prescription rings and other methods of abuse. Nelson said at the present time local police are the only enforcement agents available to detect abuse. Unfortunately, they have a diverse number of responsibili ties, and are not capable of devoting their full attention to drug abusers. The diversion unit will field complaints com-plaints from pharmacists who suspect prescriptions have been forged, and keep tabs on people arrested for a variety of reasons who are discovered to have controlled drugs in their possession. "Of course it's possible the drugs in question are sitting in storage on a shelf, but basic economics doesn't uphold that," Nelson said. "As a retailer, if you have 15 apples on your shelf and they aren't selling, you won't order any more. Our ARCOS data covers a couple of years, and from a consuming aspect, we can safely say that per capita, Utah ranks second in cocaine." What is cocaine used for? Legally produced, the fine white powder is generally used by physicians as a topical anesthetic in eye surgery and in emergency rooms and clinics in the treatment of severe nosebleeds. Dr. Sudds, the Drug Information Service Coordinator at the University of Utah Hospital, commented that their pharmacy keeps a limited quantity of cocaine on hand, as do other hospitals, clinics and research facilities. "We have a very active ear, nose and throat department here and cocaine is used by our specialists," Dr. Sudds said. "We absolutely do not prescribe it to our patients, and wouldn't expect that a local pharmacy would have it on its shelves. We buy it in bulk and make up solutions that are used for the treatment of nosebleeds and as an anesthetic." When informed that Utahns have an inordinately high consumption rate of cocaine indicating illegal trafficking or a tremendous number of nosebleeds, nose-bleeds, Dr. Sudds quipped, "It must be the altitude." Dan Parker of Park City's Village Pharmacy noted that cocaine is used in the treatment of nosebleeds because it quickly penetrates nasal membranes and constricts blood vessels. Abusers apparently find euphoria in this reaction, and generally gen-erally take the drug by sniffing it into the nose. '' Why does' the illegal trafficking of cocaine enjoy sueh a succss rate? .. The white powder, commonly referred re-ferred to in the drug world as "snow" or "toot" is also known as the rich man's drug. On the streets a gram of cocaine packed neatly into a thimble-sized thimble-sized glass container commands prices upwards of $100. While it passes from one drug dealer to the next it usually is "stepped on" or diluted with such fillers as talcum powder or dry laxatives, giving the dealer more for his money, and the buyer less for his. Regular buyers of the high cost, low quality drug will be distressed to learn that medical institutions buy the 100 percent pure product for $40 an ounce, or $1.30 per gram. "We don't carry it on our shelves," Parker said, "But we could get it as pure as it comes very cheaply compared to street prices. Street drugs are so high-cost because of the liability involved. Dealers risk getting caught by the police or passing bad stuff. "Medicinal drugs are much cheaper than what comes from the abuser. For instance, amphetamines (a nervous system stimulant) can be bought for about $8 for a 30-day supply with a doctor's prescription. On the street, that same supply could bring up to $500. "Few pharmacies have more than an ounce of cocaine at one time," Parker continued. "And most, like us, don't even have it. If the word gets out that you can get a prescription like that filled, it just increases your chances of being robbed." With the kind of profits possible in illegal drug trade, the federal government keeps close tabs on just how much of every drug is allowed to be produced. "The Compliance Section of the DEA works with the Food and Drug Administration to jointly determine what the legitimate medical need of a particular substance is for the population of the United States and for export," Nelson said. "Then a control is levied on the manufacturer as to what he can make. The control mechanism is through the amount of raw material allowed to be imported and the actual production quota. Once the quotas are established, the manufacturers are bound to report their production schedules, and we check through auditing." . Nelson said that at the manufacturing manufactur-ing level, if a quota calls for a kilogram of the raw material necessary ne-cessary to produce 10,000 pills and only 8,000 pills can be accounted for, severe civil penalties are imposed. Nelson further stated that the DEA has become sophisticated enough to detect drugs legally and illegally produced. "The DEA has their own laboratory system," Nelson remarked. "We don't use the FBI to analyze our evidence. We are the experts in the analysis of drugs. We have a ballistics section and we can determine where and who made certain capsules. Because of our intelligence network, we can tell where in the states drugs are being illegally produced. The punches and dies that are used to make pills leave markings much like those found on bullets. "But the drugs we're interested in now are the legally made ones, and we feel the problem is with the indiscriminate indiscrim-inate prescriber." Nelson said that after the death of Elvis Presley it was revealed he had been prescribed over 5,000 pills in less than a year. "It's estimated the man was taking ' about 25 tablets a day," Nelson said. "His physician could be classified an indiscriminate prescriber. ' ' Looking for the indiscriminate prescriber pre-scriber will be the job of the diversion investigation unit in Utah. The two-year project officially begins October 1 and ends the same time in 1981. But Nelson said the federal government encourages each state to continue with the program on its own. "We hope each state will work the program into their legislative budget," bud-get," Nelson remarked. "There has been a high success rate 11 states are now on state funds and are still operating. Six others are still under the guidance of the DEA, and now Utah has joined the ranks. The purpose of the program is upgrading each state's ability to get started in the program and to continue on their own." The task could be enormous, Nelson commented, "We believe the leak in the bucket is at the retail level." With more than 500,000 manufacturing companies, hospitals, doctors, pharmacists, phar-macists, clinics and research institutions institu-tions registered to handle controlled substances, it could take some time to find the leak. Subdivision Law Adopted Continued From Page 1 Other minor changes were made in areas concerning the scale of contour maps, notification of adjacent proper- . ty owners, subdivider escrow accounts, ac-counts, trust deeds, and the clarifica- ; tion of the cluster subdivision definition. defini-tion. y r In addition to the review of the definition of "subdivision", council-f council-f man Dering recommended that the f Planning Commission also consider the comments made by the Citizen's Council's lawyer, Lee Kapaloski. Kapaloski, a professional planner whose law practice concentrates on natural resources and zoning, ad-dressed ad-dressed his comments in a letter dated September 17. "It appears that Park City is faced with a very exaggerated, if not unique, growth situation," Kapaloski wrote. "As a result, there are inherent and inevitable tensions which will ' continuously occur between the sub-i sub-i dividers-developers and the city, .. expecially the Planning Commission. If Park City truly desires to manage . and direct its growth for the total city's interest, this tension must be " minimized or at least channeled into a rational negotiation procedure. One means of so channeling these negotiations negotia-tions is via a tightly constructed. subdivision ordinance. I do not know and really doubt if there ever has been a perfect subdivision ordinance... overall, the new ordinance is an improvement over the very abbreviated abbrev-iated ordinance on subdivision. The attorney's key recommendation was to include a "red flagging," or phased review, step in the preliminary prelimi-nary and final subdivision plat review. "This is to avoid what I call the '11th hour' pressures and unnecessary compromises inherent in the proposed traditional preliminary-final review process," Kapaloski said. The attorney noted that as presented, the subdivider needs to spend time and money engineering the project before any indication is given by the Planning Commission as to their approval or disapproval of the project. "This commitment by a subdivider carries with it strong political pressures on the Planning Commission Commis-sion and city at large to leaven if not eliminate their concerns," Kapaloski noted. "It would seem much more logical and simple to identify these key constraints or concerns in Park City which will ultimately be the determinative criteria for an acceptable accep-table subdivision and get them reviewed way up front in the process to avoid the quagmire and undesirable undesir-able aspects of 11th hour stoppage. I suggest, therefore, that the so-called preliminary plat review be preceded by a 'red flagging' review stage which could stylistically be called 'preliminary 'prelimi-nary impact review' or some such caption." The attorney outlined eight specific comments concerning the new document, docu-ment, ending with, "I hope the suggestions about an early 'red flag' stage are seriously considered in light of the accelerated growth situation occurring in Park City. I also hope these suggestions are taken as constructive rather than merely critical. I do not doubt that the Citizens Council desires implementation implementa-tion of a workable and defensible ordinance and I know the city: must concur." j With Mayor Jack Green noting, "I see no reason not to adopt this ordinance and go with it now instead of the disaster we have," the council adopted it into law and referred it back to the Planning Commission for more review and revision. PROSPECTOR SQUARE ATHLETIC CLUB Racquetball Indoor Pool Weight Room Tennis Volleyball Classes Instruction 7:00 a.m. -10:30 p.m. memberships available Daily or Weekly passes available 3QE 3 El I IBE 3BI-T LIBE Sis IniisinirsiMi E 1JJ I have a term life plan to help your family keep your home, free and clear, if your mortgage outlives you. Call me for details. Tom Ligare Mount Air Mall 649-9161 STAT! FARM INSURANCE ). State Farm Life Insurance Company Home Office: Bloomington, Illinois Aire yflna tomm between EfflW9(0)l9 Anidt or 31 Meircecie ems? 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