More Elderly People Being Arrested for Selling Prescription Drugs
Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2005
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com
A 90-year-old Mobile, Alabama woman and her 60-year-old son were ordered held without bail last week for allegedly selling prescription drugs and other illegal substances from their home.
Authorities say a growing number of elderly people are selling drugs these days -- some of them to help buy food and pay bills and others because they've done things illegally for a long time.
In the case of Lucious "Big Mama" Westry, and her son Calvin "Snap" Westry, the list of drugs confiscated at their Clay Street home included OxyContin, Dilaudid, Lortab, methadone, morphine and crack cocaine.
Both Lucious Westry and Calvin Westry pleaded not guilty to the charges.
"We can't say that it's a trend, but we are seeing more cases where the elderly sell prescription medication," Charlie Cichon, president of the National Association for Drug Diversion Investigation told BlackAmericaweb.com. "The most abused drugs are drugs for pain." he said.
"We're seeing a growing number of young people starting to abuse prescription medicine.A Sometimes you'll find a case where the young person sells the elderly person's drug prescription medicine and splits the proceeds with them," Cichon said.
A growing market for illicit prescription means that more people are willing to buy it on the streets, said Richard Woodfork, a DEA spokesman based in New Orleans who is also familiar with the Westry case.
A recent study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University shows that the number of Americans who abuse controlled prescription drugs has nearly doubled from 7.8 million to 15.1 million from 1992 to 2003.
"Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse and addiction," said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA's chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
"While America has been congratulating itself in recent years on curbing increases in alcohol and illicit drug abuse, and in the decline in teen smoking, abuse of prescription drugs has been stealthily, but sharply, rising," Califano said in a prepared statement.
The drug abusers most often buy the drugs illegal on the streets or from relatives or friends for whom the drugs have been prescribed.
"Police and agents in Mobile say they had been menace to the neighborhood for quite some time," Woodfork said.
According to the Mobile Register, police have answered 234 calls to the Westry house on Clay Street since 1995 and early in July, both Lucious Westry and her son, who has only one leg, were taken away in wheelchairs. Mobile police requested DEA assistance with the case. A federal grand jury indicted 11 Westrys and their associates.
Ken Karp, an investigator with the State Attorney General's office in New York, said the handling of elderly persons arrested on drug charges presents challenges for the court system.
"Sometimes there is breakdown there," Karp told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
He recalls a case about 10 years ago when a female Russian immigrant about 80 years old was selling drugs and would have them in the pockets of her house robe.
"When she went before the judge, she was sentenced to lifetime probation," Karp said. "Months later, she was back at it again. What do you do?"
Woodfork said if the aging Westrys are found guilty, they can be handled in the federal prison system.
"A judge would take into consideration any illness or medical needs," Woodfork said. "There are federal facilities that can accommodate people with medical needs."
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Thursday, July 14th 2005 at 2:14PM
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