Phoenix woman turns to street drug dealers to cope with pain
Sep 21, 2018, 4:41 AM | Updated: Sep 23, 2018, 6:20 pm
PHOENIX — A Valley woman said she has no choice but to turn to street drug dealers for the pain medications she desperately needs.
Rexanne Alworth said her hands are constantly in pain and she can no longer get prescriptions for painkillers because doctors won’t write them.
“I don’t want to be a criminal, cause I feel I am,” Alworth told KTAR News 92.3 FM.
Instead, she buys pain pills off the Phoenix streets.
“I went to my doctor when I turned 65 when I could get on Medicare. And I told her about the situation that I had, that I was buying the pills off the street and she said ‘I will not prescribe pain medication at all,'” Alworth said.
She turned to those with legal prescriptions.
“I’ve had to become a criminal,” she said. ” I have to buy it off the street from other people who have prescriptions.”
Saul Perea is a psychiatrist with Terros Health in West Phoenix. He said it is dangerous to buy street drugs because some are manufactured by drug cartels.
“Nobody knows the amount of medication they‘re putting in the pills and we as a consumer, you know, are buying every day on the streets,” Perea said.
Alworth said a pain clinic detected she was taking unprescribed medication and then refused to give her further pain meds. She wonders if others are forced to buy pain killers from street pushers.
“It’s just painful I have to do this. I just can’t imagine I’m the only one that has this problem,” Alworth said.
Perea said help is available.
“Organizations like Terros has an open door policy that anybody, regardless of their ability to pay, can come for treatment,” he said.
To Alworth, she doesn’t see any alternatives to coping with her pain.
“I’m not taking them to get high,” she said. “I’m taking them to have some modicum of comfort.”