5/21/09
Seroquel is an emerging street drug in Española, according to State Police agent Joey Gallegos.
Gallegos confirmed a claim by a former Rio Arriba County Jail inmate that he and others who were prescribed Seroquel in the Rio Arriba County Jail in Tierra Amarilla, now buy it illegally on the streets of Española.
“We just took Seroquel from some juveniles this morning in Hernandez,” Gallegos said Monday. “They were playing a video game and a juvenile had the pills on his lap, counting them.”
Gallegos has found Seroquel on suspects 15 times over the past six months, he estimated.
“I can tell you probably 90 percent of the adults (found with Seroquel) had been in the Tierra Amarilla jail,” he said. “About a quarter of suspects with Seroquel have been juveniles.”
Seroquel was seized far less often before 2008, a year after Seroquel prescriptions spiked at the County Jail, according to Gallegos.
“We’d seen it occasionally, but it’s definitely gotten more and more popular,” Gallegos said.
The drug is called “pildoras” or “pastillas” by Española users, Gallegos said. Whatever name it goes by, Seroquel is a powerful psychiatric drug approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for use with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Seroquel costs between $5 and $10 per pill on the street in Española, Gallegos said. None of the people Gallegos has arrested with Seroquel had prescriptions for the drug, he said.
The emerging trade in Seroquel is just part of a much larger problem with prescription drug abuse, Gallegos said. Overdoses due to prescription drugs has helped fuel an overall increase in fatal overdoses in the County the last three years.
“Pill arrests are outstripping heroin, more so in the past year” Gallegos said. “It gets frustrating because we’re starting to see prescription pills in the schools. They buy pill crushers and snort ‘em to get an instant high. Instead of sticking needles in their arms, they snort pills.”
Heroin and cocaine are smuggled from Mexico, but pills are acquired locally by manipulating doctors, Gallegos said.
“It’s all local,” Gallegos said. “They’re not smuggling pills up, no way. They’re getting them here. A lot of these guys go to one doc because their back hurts, then another for their knees. Some get 300 or 400 Percocets a month, just ridiculous amounts.”
Police have repeatedly told local doctors that their patients have been caught selling prescription pills, but with little effect, Gallegos said.
“It’s worked a few times, but usually, the doctors don’t cut off the prescriptions,” Gallegos said.
Prescription pill arrests are more difficult to prosecute than heroin, particularly if the suspect ever had a prescription in the past, Gallegos said. That’s one reason pills are growing in popularity, Gallegos said.
Another reason is that it’s safer for dealers to sell pills than heroin or cocaine, he said.
“More and more, we’re seeing bags of pills and pill distribution networks,” Gallegos said. “People are catching on that it’s easier to get away with selling pills. One of the reasons pills are becoming popular too is that people who drink and drive know it’s a crime but taking pills, getting high on Seroquel or whatever, they’re just as impaired but officers won’t recognize it.”