TRUMBULL COUNTY Cops arrest 29 people in drug ring

A local physician is among those arrested.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The Trumbull County Drug Task Force and the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy arrested 29 people over the weekend on secret indictments.
Those arrested are scheduled to appear in court today, sheriff's department officials said.
The indictments came after a 10-month investigation into the illegal street sales of OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller.
Officials suspect those indicted were part of a "large-scale pharmaceutical diversion ring" that operated in Trumbull and Mahoning counties as well as in parts of western Pennsylvania.
Numerous buys: Drug task force officials said that investigators made numerous buys from various individuals living in Trumbull County during the investigation.
As part of the investigation, the task force and the pharmacy board went through all pharmacies in Trumbull County and looked at patient profiles of all individuals who were receiving 40-milligram and 80-milligram tablets of OxyContin, officials said. They looked at pharmacy records from July 1999 through December 2000.
They saw that several patients were obtaining the drug from the same doctor, investigators said.
They searched the doctor's office twice and seized records. The doctor, who has been arrested on a secret indictment, was to be in court later today, officials said. The doctor's name has not yet been released.
The investigation also showed that the doctor wrote numerous prescriptions to people he never saw, officials said.
Pills: Investigators believe that about 36,500 OxyContin pills were illegally obtained from July 1999 through December 2000. Task force officials said OxyContin sells on the street for 50 cents a milligram.
That means that one 80-milligram tablet of OxyContin has a street price here of $40 per pill. Task Force officials believe that those who were illegally dealing the drug made about $1.4 million.
OxyContin's strength has been compared to that of morphine.
but OxyContin doesn't have some of morphine's bad side effects, medical experts said.