Todd Paris, Associate Editor and Salisbury Attorney
♦ In the past few years new administrative rules were placed into effect by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to share information gained from pharmacies with local law enforcement to combat the nation’s wide-spread prescription drug abuse problem with opiates and methamphetamine. The results are freely shared with law enforcement. Algorithms inside the DEA’s computers were initially put in place to detect “doctor shopping” (the practice of obtaining scripts from multiple doctors to allow sufficient quantities for abuse and (or) sale). This surprisingly created information and data showing much, much more. Physicians, who used to liberally prescribe powerful opiates, received warnings. The black market in prescription pills have substantially dried up and where they are available, the street price skyrocketed.
The law of unintended consequences being what it is has impacted scores of folks addicted to drugs like Oxycodone (hillbilly heroin), a semisynthetic opioid synthesized from an opioid alkaloid found in the Persian poppy have found themselves without a “fix” or unable to afford it where available. The answer? It’s “the real deal” – nasty, cheap and dangerous. It’s heroin. Problems abound, among them an explosion in hepatitis, blood infections and all too frequently death by overdose.
Recent “miscellaneous body found” reports of dead bodies turning up in ditches and fields are disturbing and so common that local media no longer report them. Folks often abuse heroin and other hard drugs with fellow junkies and many will overdose. For years if someone called 911, the cops came, arrested everyone for serious felonies, seized the remaining stash and the party ended. Maybe it’s better to dump some hapless wretch in a ditch or out in the woods and pretend it never happened?
Opioid antagonists were developed like Naloxone and naltrexone in a shot form that can literally bring the afflicted back from the brink of death. These shots are distributed among first responders in this area and have saved many lives already.
Worried about calling 911? Perhaps unfairly maligned as caring little for post-natal humans, “god’s chosen legislature” up in Raleigh has enacted and modified N.C. Gen. Stat. 90-96.2 which provides limited immunity to overdose victims and the person making the call for small amounts of controlled substances and paraphernalia found “at the scene.” In August of 2015, the immunity was also extended to probation violations based upon substances found. Note: this limited immunity does not extend to other folks “hanging around” or other residents of the dwelling. This “Good Samaritan” law will allow the afflicted and one caller to save someone’s life. The entire text of the amended law is attached for your understanding and edification and should be spread widely to save lives.
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015/Bills/Senate/PDF/S154v5.pdf
