Elderly sell prescription drugs to youngsters
The Daily Telegraph
July 3, 1996
by Paul Stokes
Elderly people are turning to drug dealing by selling young users tablets they have obtained on prescription, according to police.
The sales are believed to be one source of supplying the black market trade in the powerful tranquilliser temazepam in Grimsby, Lincs. It is also thought that even more dangerous drugs are being sold after being lawfully prescribed to elderly people anxious for cash.
Det Chief Insp Colin Andrews, of Humberside police, said: "We have dealt with pensioners who have been selling on their prescriptions. Some of them go to their doctors with the sole purpose of getting drugs to sell on - often to supplement their income. Pharmaceuticals always have a greater value on the black market."
Mr Andrews, who works in the force's divisional support branch, did not consider the trade by a minority of pensioners to be a major source of supply.
Dr Bob Barton, a family doctor who runs an addiction clinic at Grimsby hospital, understood that drugs, including diconal, may have been sold on to youngsters by senior citizens.
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