With thefts and abuse of painkillers continuing to plague the state, federal drug agents are asking local police to join a task force dedicated to investigating prescription drug cases.
Colorado ranks second nationally for prescription painkiller abuse, according to government statistics.
“We are the last people who want to say pain medications are bad,” said Jeffrey Sweetin, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Denver division. The key, he said, “is going after people who are taking advantage of the system and moving into the illicit market.”
The Denver DEA recently added two agents to the task force, bringing the number to four. An investigator from the Denver Police Department works with the team, but the DEA needs more officers to cast a wider net.
Cities like Aurora, where Children’s Hospital and the University of Colorado Hospital have recently moved, could use more investigators to weed out prescription fraud and theft.
“We need to look at larger-scale diversion on the Internet, with doctors, and in hospitals,” said Special Agent Michael J. Santavicca, who supervises the team.
Statistics show most people abusing prescription drugs are stealing from a family member, but there are drug dealers hoping to capitalize on narcotics that can sell for $1 a milligram.
One Oxycontin pill in Denver sells for $35 on the street.
And agents have intercepted phone calls from gang members who traffic street drugs like cocaine and heroin discussing the sales of prescription painkillers.
“We are dealing with polydrug organizations who are giving out 1,000 tablets of Oxycontin along with coke, heroin and meth,” Santavicca said. “It’s big money. We need more proactive people on the street.”
Martin Davis, a nurse who worked with cancer patients at Denver Health Medical Center, was convicted of taking the painkiller Dilaudid from the syringes of patients and replacing it with saline so he could have the drugs for his own use.
Last year, Davis was placed on four years of probation and ordered to pay more than $8,000 in fines.
Amy Kanzler, a former veterinary technician, was convicted of diluting morphine with saline as pets were undergoing surgery and taking some of the drugs for herself.
In April, Kanzler received 42 months of probation.
From 2004 through 2006, the DEA tactical diversion squad arrested 126 people for allegedly obtaining prescription drugs illegally. Five of those arrests in 2004 included registered nurses. The DEA arrested 26 nurses in 2005.
Santavicca said he knows investigating prescription drug cases is not as sexy as bringing down members of a street gang, but the damage to the community remains the same.
“These people are harming people and harming the system,” he said. “Our thrust and focus is to get more manpower.”
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
