Stepping up protection of small LI drugstores

In the wake of the fatal Seaford pharmacy shooting New Year's Eve, a little-known Long Island business organization that has the support of the FBI has stepped up its efforts to provide protection for small drugstores that have been the target of deadly attacks.

In addition, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano earlier this week sent letters to pharmacists suggesting safety precautions they can take, and telling them about a task force he had created after the Father's Day pharmacy shooting in Medford that took four lives.

And, the Connecticut-based company that manufactures OxyContin -- the prescription drug that robbers were after in both the Medford and Seaford shootings -- noted that its national database that tracks and analyzes crimes at drugstores now has 5,214 registered users.

Brendan Healy of Garden City, president of the Long Island chapter of InfraGard, a national nonprofit that serves as a link between the FBI and businesses seeking security ideas, said earlier this week that the local organization is now concentrating its efforts on small, independent pharmacies on the Island in the wake of the shootings, both of which took place at independent stores. An off-duty agent of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives was killed in Seaford, along with the robbery suspect.

"Rite Aid and CVS have the resources" to buy sophisticated surveillance systems, Healy said. Independents often do not. InfraGard has partnered with the Nassau County Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse Prevention Task Force, which Mangano started after the shootings in Medford. InfraGard and the task force, chaired by Eden Laikin, who is the county executive's director of governmental research, sent a letter to about 2,600 pharmacists in Nassau.

"Pharmacists can better protect themselves, prevent diversion and care for their patients through preventive measures," the letter said in part. Mangano suggests simple steps, from never working alone in a pharmacy to requiring photo ID for all controlled-substance drugs.

Purdue Pharma L.P., the Stamford, Conn.,-based maker of OxyContin, came under sharp criticism in 2001 by then-Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who said that while the company seemed sincere, it was taking little action beyond "cosmetic and symbolic steps."

Purdue spokeswoman Shirley Johnson said the company is actively participating to prevent OxyContin abuse. She said the company's national database, RxPatrol, established in 2003, helps law-enforcement agencies track pharmacy crimes. "Whenever a pharmacy crime happens, we also reach out to Crime Stoppers as well as law enforcement," Johnson said.