For customers who arrive with scripts demanding a high dosage of the drug, Quivey sometimes calls the doctor to discuss her concerns. But many of them aren’t aware of gabapentin misuse, she said.
Even as gabapentin gets restocked regularly on Quivey’s shelves, the drug’s presence is increasing on the streets of Athens. A 300-milligram pill sells for as little as 75 cents.
Yet, according to Chuck Haegele, field supervisor for the Major Crimes Unit at the Athens City Police Department, law enforcement can do little to stop its spread. That's because gabapentin is not categorized as a controlled substance. That designation places restrictions on who can possess and dispense the drug.
"There's really not much we can do at this point," he said. "If it's not controlled … it's not illegal for somebody that's not prescribed it to possess it."
Haegele said he heard about the drug less than three months ago when an officer accidentally received a text message from someone offering to sell it. The police force, he said, is still trying to assess the threat of gabapentin.
Little Testing
Nearly anyone arrested and found to struggle with addiction in Athens is given the option to go through a drug court program to get treatment. But officials said that some exploit the absence of routine exams for gabapentin to get high while testing clean.
Brice Johnson, a probation officer at Athens County Municipal Court, said participants in the municipal court's Substance Abuse Mentally Ill Program undergo gabapentin testing only when abuse is suspected. Screenings are not regularly done on every client because abuse has not been a concern and the testing adds expense, he said.
The rehab program run through the county prosecutor's office, called Fresh Start, does test for gabapentin. Its latest round of screenings detected the drug in five of its roughly 238 active participants, prosecutor Keller Blackburn said.
Linda Holley, a clinical supervisor at an Athens outpatient program run by the Health Recovery Services, said she suspects at least half of her clients on Suboxone treatment abuse gabapentin. But the center can't afford to regularly test every participant.
Holley said she sees clients who are prescribed gabapentin but, due to health privacy laws, she can't share their status as a person in recovery to an outside provider without written consent. The restrictions give clients in recovery an opportunity to get high using drugs they legally obtained and still pass a drug test.
"With the gabapentin, I wish there were more we could do, but our hands are tied," she said. "We can't do anything but educate the client and discourage" them from using such medications.
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