This is just sad....

[baldguy]

Seniors Charged With Selling Prescriptions

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. - 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.

...

The Rev. Doug Abner, pastor of Community Church in Manchester and an anti-drug activist, said senior citizens may not understand the seriousness of selling prescription drugs.

"They justify it because they're having a hard time financially," he said. "Left to ourselves, we can justify anything, but they're really part of the problem."

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_he_me/elderly_drug_dealers;_ylt=ApQ0V.zWDfqNudHfqoujpz6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

Is it a crime to be poor in America now?

[AllegroRondo]

1. And Rush is still free?

[Oceansaway]

3. pretty pathetic huh

[edbermac]

2. She's lucky she wasn't Tazered...

Maybe if she sold them to Limbaugh, she would have avoided the slammer...

[Catherine Vincent]

4. Yes. Very sad.

[stillcool]

5. America is a crime scene...

from sea to shining sea.

[Broken_Hero]

6. In GWBs America....

It is a crime to be poor....or so its seems...sad, article...

[EC]

7. Would they Rather they sell their organs?

For God sake, why should they care what happens with the drugs after they sell them...instead of arresting these poor people they should recognize there is a real problem if they have to resort to this. Don't they think these people need their meds? But so they can pay their bills and eat, they take the pain and sell half of a NEEDED commodity...this speaks volumes and instead of listening they turn a deaf ear to the real problem and throw Granny in the shitcan....I'm really hating these types of people...


Here they just threw a man into jail for stealing cold meds for his daughter who is very sick...and to top it off, they didn't even help the child....

[shenmue]

8. Just awful

:cry:

[annabanana]

9. well, The Rev. Doug Abner

sounds like a truly compassionate Christian. I sure would want him to be my Grandmother's pastor during tough times...(:sarcasm:, in case anyone's thick around here today)

[Warpy]

10. Think of the pain they're enduring, too

I can tell you from personal experience that medication for chronic pain is very hard to come by. The DEA, unsuccessful at stopping illegal drugs, is spending its time leaning on doctors who prescribe opiates for their chronic pain patients, so most docs are very reluctatnt to do so. Some docs have had their licenses pulled due to DEA pressure on state medical boards.

Having to choose between food and pain relief is horrible enough, but having a government that punishes you for selling the only thing you have to sell in order to eat is even worse.

End the drug war. Please. And throw corporate pig who has ever raided a pension fund into prison, while you're at it.