The tide is turning in the way Montgomery County Police tackle the increasing problem of prescription drug fraud.
Pharmacists used to be reluctant to report possible fraud cases to law enforcement, but police are now joining forces with these health professionals to better catch and help abusers.
“We’re trying to develop a good relationship with them [pharmacists] so we can feel free to call each other and share information,” said Sgt. Brad Graham, who is in charge of Montgomery County’s Pharmaceutical Unit.
Graham says he regularly communicates with pharmacists about leads from his unit, and in return the pharmacists tip them off to suspicious activities in their stores.
“They’ll call me only here and there, but every time they have it’s been a good lead,” he said.
That a specific unit of the police department in Montgomery County is devoted exclusively to prescription fraud demonstrates the extent to which that crime has grown.
Graham said he’s unsure of an exact number, but that there have been close to 500 prescription drug fraud arrests in the past year.
Although the unit was created a few years ago, it disbanded for a full year and is only now beginning to regain focus due to the upturn in cases.
Most often, Graham said, the suspects charged are either first-time offenders trying to get their hands on Oxycontin, people hooked on pain medications they originally were prescribed for specific injuries, or those just wanting to get high but fearing that if they buy heroin or another street drug they won’t know what they’re getting.
There are exceptions, however.
According to Graham, an area dentist he once busted had been forging prescriptions for 10 years. And this week, detectives charged a Potomac woman with 24 counts of prescription fraud after finding out from her pharmacist that she had forged two-dozen prescriptions for various amounts of methadone and Provigil.
