People do more to steal painkillers, surprised?

Painkiller thieves get more creative
By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY
For real estate agents in Simsbury, Conn., James Dimeola seemed to be the ultimate window shopper. He kept showing up at open houses last year for homes of wildly varying prices. Sometimes he brought a woman and a child. He would tour homes thoroughly, but would never make an offer.
Then several home sellers complained that some of their prescription drugs were missing from their medicine cabinets. An office manager for a local real estate office called police, who eventually focused on Dimeola as a suspect. Dimeola, who later acknowledged being addicted to painkillers, was convicted in January of larceny and now is on two years' probation.

"He did this for a long time and got away with it," says Thomas Sheehan, a police detective in Simsbury, a community of about 23,000 northwest of Hartford. "At first, he was really brazen. He'd look around and open cabinets. He'd leave his business card. He talked knowledgably about real estate."

The case reflected the increasingly creative tactics that some desperate addicts are using to worm their way into homes so they can steal prescription painkillers, particularly OxyContin and Percocet. Police across the nation say that in recent months, drug thieves have posed as potential homebuyers, garage-sale browsers, building inspectors and cops to get into homes — and then into medicine cabinets.

Authorities in several cities also have reported burglaries by addicts who scanned newspaper obituaries for people who died of cancer or other painful illnesses. While the deceased person's family members attended the funeral, the addicts broke into the family's home to look for leftover painkillers.

"Those who are seeking drugs have raised their game to a new level," says Scott Burns, deputy director for state and local affairs at the White House Office for National Drug Control Policy. "They will use any ruse to into someone's home — 'Can I use your bathroom? Can I use your phone?' — and then they clean out the medicine cabinet and are gone before you know it."

Such incidents come at a time when the illicit use of prescription painkillers is becoming more common among teenagers and young adults. The 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found that 11.2% of U.S. teenagers reported having used prescription pain relievers for non-medical reasons at least once. That was up from 9.6% in 2001 and 1.2% in 1989.

The survey said that 6.2 million people, 3% of the U.S. population, abuse prescription drugs such as OxyContin, an addictive opium derivative. Emergency room visits linked to the abuse of pain medicine containing opiates, such as Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet, Demerol and Darvon, more than doubled from 1994 to 2001, according to statistics collected by the U.S. government.

Limbaugh case highlights issue

OxyContin made headlines this fall when conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh acknowledged that he was addicted to prescription pain medications and temporarily left his show to go to a rehabilitation clinic. Limbaugh said he began taking the pain medications to relieve severe back pain. (The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration have asked drugmakers to reformulate the medications to make them more difficult to abuse.)

Reports of addicts targeting open houses have led real estate groups to post alerts in trade magazines and on listing services. The alerts tell agents to have clients lock up medicines and other valuables before open houses.

The Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin issued an alert last year after hearing reports about a middle-aged woman who went through open houses, opened drawers and then protested when an agent followed her.

The association advises agents to follow prospective customers through a home, particularly those who say they want to look around by themselves, says Kevin King, the group's executive vice president. "The Realtors probably shake their heads and say, 'I can't believe we have to deal with this,' " he says. "It's unfortunate that they do."

Thieves often work in pairs. One might talk with an agent in one room while the other rummages through cabinets and drawers, says Pili Meyer, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Port Angeles, Wash., a former member of a state safety panel for real estate agents. She encourages agents to work in pairs so they do not lose sight of a client.

Meyer says prescription drugs have been stolen from homes that were for sale in Portland and Salem, Ore. She says some thieves also have gone to open houses to try to collect credit card receipts. They steal the receipts and then use the card numbers to order goods by mail, she says.

"It happens everywhere, but it doesn't always get reported because so many people come into a house, you aren't sure when the drugs were stolen," Meyer says. "There's no clearinghouse for this sort of thing."

Impersonating an officer

Thieves also have impersonated law enforcement officers to get into homes.

In Madison, Wis., last December, a 26-year-old man who claimed to be a private investigator working on a narcotics case for the FBI appeared at the apartment of a woman carrying a holstered gun and handcuffs.

"He started by asking her a series of questions: 'Do you have narcotics in the apartment? Do you live alone?' " Madison police spokesman Larry Kamholz says. The man told her he had heard that she had some leg problems and asked what pain medicine she was taking, Kamholz says. She told him Tylenol, and the man asked if he could have some. She said no and he went away. He returned the next day and asked to use the bathroom, Kamholz says.

After letting the man in, the woman "could hear bottles rattling around" in the bathroom, Kamholz says, and "this time, she called the police." The man, Dale Jackson of Madison, was convicted of impersonating a police officer and sentenced to three years' probation.

"We've been seeing an increase in the lengths that people will go to obtain drugs. We have people robbing pharmacies of OxyContin," Kamholz says. "But impersonating a police officer is probably the tops."

Sometimes, the thieves are legitimate city workers.

Two years ago in Utah, a city building inspector stole medicines while pretending to inspect homes, Burns says. The inspector hit about 20 houses before he was caught, Burns says.

"Anyone who has prescription drugs in their home is a potential victim," Burns says. "People are out to get your drugs any way they can."

--Ironic point, Rush Limbaugh has the balls to give his opinion on attaining prescrip drugs illegaly.

This is posted for Peenark, who is unavailable to log in at the time.

An interesting way to obtain drugs.