Police: Elderly sell pain pills for cash

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/12/elderly.dealers.ap/index.html

Dottie Neeley, 87, was fingerprinted, photographed and thrown in jail, imprisoned as much by the tubing from her oxygen tank as by the concrete and steel around her.

The woman -- who spent two days in jail after her arrest last December -- is among a growing number of Kentucky senior citizens charged in a crackdown on a crime authorities say is rampant in Appalachia: Elderly people are reselling their painkillers and other medications to addicts.

"When a person is on Social Security, drawing $500 a month, and they can sell their pain pills for $10 apiece, they'll take half of them for themselves and sell the other half to pay their electric bills or buy groceries," Floyd County jailer Roger Webb said.

Since April 2004, Operation UNITE, a Kentucky anti-drug task force created largely in response to rampant abuse of the powerful and sometimes lethal painkiller OxyContin, has charged more than 40 people 60 or older with selling primarily prescription drugs in the mountains.

"It used to be a rare occasion to have an elderly inmate," Webb said. "Five years ago it was a rarity."

Now we're going to have jails full of elderly people instead of addressing the REAL problem. Only in America... Sigh...

the mental health hospital of 10 or 15 years ago. Courts have now assigned judges just for the mentally ill cases. They help get them stabilized and in safe housing via court.

Jail is a cornucopia of societies whoas.

but I sympathize with these elderly folk; absolutely

Elderly and disabled individuals sell their prescribed drugs and indeed go to jail.

...this must be part of Junior's plan to decrease the number of senior citizens who sign up for his Medicare prescription benefit.

You can't sign up, if you're behind bars.

it is not like the seniors are living high off the hog or anything. Food and power are vaid reasons.

his rich friends.

Busting Granny in the War on Some Drugs?

"Operation UNITE"???

It's really come down to this? Your Pills or your Chills? Food, heat, or meds?

Only in Amerika. :grr:

When the student loan "now privatized" collection agencies start seizing these folks Social security checks, they will no longer have the money to buy these pain killers. Then, they can no longer break the law. Problem solved!!!

Compassionate conservatism works very well, doesn't it?

:sarcasm:

Roving bands of grannies selling drugs.

Or perhaps more appropriately, it is straight out of Charles Dickens. The war on drugs - what a thing that is.

I have a friend who has a prescription for Xanax. He pays $15 for 60 and could sell the bottle for $100 if he wanted to. With that kind of markup, it's hard to resist. And my friend isn't elderly and on social security.

That the elderly have to resort to this as their only way to survive? So the rich can continue to stockpile money? How sad is that.