Morphine

A quarter of a million dollars worth of morphine was seized yesterday from an apartment that police believe was the base for a large West Baltimore drug-distribution ring, narcotics officers said.Western District drug enforcement officers raided the apartment in the 300 block of W. Monument St. about 2:40 p.m. and found roughly 1 pound of unpackaged morphine and 5,100 small glassine bags containing morphine, police said. The glassine bags appeared to be ready for sale on the street and would fetch about $20 apiece, police said.

An estimated 3.5 million cancer patients around the globe are in severe pain from their disease, but many get no relief. In poor countries the cost is considered too high for drugs like morphine when such opioids are often stolen, abused or not taken according to instruction. But some Johns Hopkins University scientists have been working on a solution for those patients, as well as some in the United States, that uses a flexible button-sized disk implanted under the skin that releases consistent doses of painkiller over a month.

A man suspected of posing as a physician and stealing a morphine-administering patch from a patient at a Northwest Baltimore medical facility has been arrested on charges of assault and robbery, city police said yesterday. Aleksandr Dzhanashvili, 31, of the first block of Stonehenge Circle in Pikesville was charged in a warrant with assault and robbery. He was arrested Wednesday by members of the Regional Warrant Apprehension Task Force shortly after he entered Harbor Hospital in South Baltimore, police said.

My wife is disabled. She is 58 years old, as am I. At one time, she was a wonderful teacher, sales associate for a large telecom and later a vibrant pharmacy technician and caregiver for her disabled father and mother-in-law. She has fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. She has seizures. They don't know why, but they are documented in a hospital study as not caused by epilepsy. She can no longer drive nor would I want her to. She wears a morphine patch to get through the day, along with various other drugs.

POCOMOKE CITY -- The daughter of an elderly woman who authorities believe was intentionally given a fatal dose of morphine at a nursing home said she thinks the death was an act of cold-blooded murder, not mercy."

In a tiny laboratory in Germany, an obscure young pharmacist's apprentice managed to concentrate the power of poppies into crystals that could control coughs, ease pain and tease users into a pleasant slumber. Friedrich Sertuerner, 22, published a paper announcing his discovery in 1805. He was ignored. So he went back to his experiments, injecting dogs with the drug he had extracted from opium and doping himself and his buddies. A dozen years later he published again, this time naming his discovery after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.

As angry officials of a Crownsville drug and alcohol treatment center for poor people looked on, their once-trusted ex-bookkeeper and her husband were ordered yesterday to spend a weekend in jail and to repay the nearly $60,000 they stole. County Circuit Judge Joseph P. Manck also sentenced Sherry Ann and Charles Trabing of Arnold to six months of house arrest and five years of probation in lieu of 18 months in jail for their theft from Hope House. The couple used Hope House credit cards to make thousands of dollars in personal purchases from Home Depot, Staples and Texaco.

EASTON -- A Worcester County grand jury has indicted three former employees of a Pocomoke City nursing home in the death of a 91-year-old patient, who investigators think was killed with an unauthorized dose of a powerful morphine-based painkiller.Former employees Marjorie Karen Alpaugh, 51, of Princess Anne, and Delores Lee Walker, 47, of Fruitland, were charged yesterday with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, distribution of morphine, conspiracy to distribute morphine and possession of morphine.

A former technician at Francis Scott Key Medical Center has been charged with stealing large quantities of morphineDaniel Chodnicki, 30, of the first block of Duntore Place in Fullerton, was indicted by the Baltimore grand jury last week on 235 counts of possession with intent to distribute morphine and Fentanyl, powerful analgesics, and diazepam (Valium), a tranquilizer. He also was charged with felony theft in what city prosecutors called the largest case of its kind in recent memory."Both the size and the scope are alarming," said State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms.

EASTON -- A Worcester County grand jury has indicted three former employees of a Pocomoke City nursing home in connection with the death of 91-year-old patient who investigators believe was killed with an unauthorized dose of a powerful morphine-based painkiller.Maidie Lang Shay died Jan. 29 at Hartley Hall Nursing Home, a well-known facility for the elderly on the Lower Eastern Shore.The state medical examiner's office in Baltimore found traces of morphine in tissue samples taken from the woman's remains after investigations by nursing home officials and police raised questions about the cause of Mrs. Shay's death.

Clinton McCracken and Carrie John knew all about addictions and obsessive behavior. Both worked as postdoctoral research fellows at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and earlier this year published their conclusions from a study of "compulsions and habit formation." But their research might have taken too personal a turn. John, 29, a Wake Forest University graduate with a doctorate in physiology and pharmacology, died Sunday after apparently injecting herself with what McCracken called a "bad" batch of buprenorphine, a narcotic known on the street as "bupe" and commonly used to treat heroin addiction.

A man suspected of posing as a physician and stealing a morphine-administering patch from a patient at a Northwest Baltimore medical facility has been arrested on charges of assault and robbery, city police said yesterday. Aleksandr Dzhanashvili, 31, of the first block of Stonehenge Circle in Pikesville was charged in a warrant with assault and robbery. He was arrested Wednesday by members of the Regional Warrant Apprehension Task Force shortly after he entered Harbor Hospital in South Baltimore, police said.

In a tiny laboratory in Germany, an obscure young pharmacist's apprentice managed to concentrate the power of poppies into crystals that could control coughs, ease pain and tease users into a pleasant slumber. Friedrich Sertuerner, 22, published a paper announcing his discovery in 1805. He was ignored. So he went back to his experiments, injecting dogs with the drug he had extracted from opium and doping himself and his buddies. A dozen years later he published again, this time naming his discovery after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.

I go to the pain center at our local hospital, and a few times a year we are given a urine test. Last week my urine test came out positive for morphine, and since I don't take morphine, I was wondering what could cause this result. I have a lemon poppy-seed muffin and a cup of coffee for breakfast, a cheese sandwich for lunch with fruit and a normal dinner. I don't take illegal drugs! Your poppy-seed muffin is the most likely culprit. Sensitive drug tests can pick up traces of opium in the poppy seeds, even though you can't get high on a muffin or bagel.

William Steig, 95, a prolific illustrator for The New Yorker known as the "King of Cartoons" for his award-winning, best-selling children's books including Shrek, died of natural causes of Friday at his home in Boston. Mr. Steig combined a child's innocent eye with idiosyncratic line to create a wonderful world of animal characters for his books and Edwardian-era dandies in his drawings. His 1990 book about a green monster, Shrek, was made into the hit film that in 2002 became the first winner of an Oscar in the new category of best animated feature.

A former nurse at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital was linked to a second death yesterday in a lawsuit alleging that a 54-year-old male patient there died because of her actions. The three children of John Lieb of Gaithersburg allege in the suit that nurse Coleen M. Thompson injected the full contents of a "very large syringe" containing morphine into their father's arm, though the doctor's orders were to administer the medicine slowly in drops. Thompson then told the family "that he will pass away in the next half to one hour," according to the wrongful death suit, which was filed with the state Health Claims Arbitration Office and Montgomery County Circuit Court.

An estimated 3.5 million cancer patients around the globe are in severe pain from their disease, but many get no relief. In poor countries the cost is considered too high for drugs like morphine when such opioids are often stolen, abused or not taken according to instruction. But some Johns Hopkins University scientists have been working on a solution for those patients, as well as some in the United States, that uses a flexible button-sized disk implanted under the skin that releases consistent doses of painkiller over a month.

The Baltimore metropolitan area ranks second in the nation for heroin and morphine abuse, with 227 emergency department visits per 100,000 residents. Figures are from 2000. Heroin/morphine emergency visits Metro area per 100,000 population Rank Newark, N.J. 238 1 Baltimore 227 2 Chicago 208 3 San Francisco 170 4 New York 128 5 Seattle 103 6 Boston 97 7 Philadelphia 81 8 New Orleans 77 9 Detroit 75 10 SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

THE WHOLE unhappy episode in Moscow involving Chechens and hostages and knockout gas and the bodies of 116 innocent people was so dispiriting in part because it seemed each side was fatally playing the role long ago assigned to it. First, Chechen gunmen (and gunwomen, in this case) launch a brazen and intolerable attack, one that fully justifies a strong Russian response. But then that response, when it comes, is outrageously violent and indiscriminate, and most of those who suffer from it are completely blameless.

As angry officials of a Crownsville drug and alcohol treatment center for poor people looked on, their once-trusted ex-bookkeeper and her husband were ordered yesterday to spend a weekend in jail and to repay the nearly $60,000 they stole. County Circuit Judge Joseph P. Manck also sentenced Sherry Ann and Charles Trabing of Arnold to six months of house arrest and five years of probation in lieu of 18 months in jail for their theft from Hope House. The couple used Hope House credit cards to make thousands of dollars in personal purchases from Home Depot, Staples and Texaco.