White, middle class housewife — hooked on Lortab

FARMINGTON — "Mary" looks like your stereotypical Utah housewife.

The 34-year old, who asked that her real name not be used, grew up in a strong LDS home. She was the Young Women's president in her ward. She is the mother of five children. She has never touched a drop of alcohol, and growing up she never saw an illegal drug.

Mary is not the type of person you'd expect to see standing trial for felony drug possession. And she is definitely not the type you would suspect of being a hard-core addict.

But for several years Mary was addicted to Lortab and several other painkiller medications. Before she was caught she was taking up to 50 pills a day. Sometimes she would take so many pills at once that they would become lodged in her throat and she'd force herself to throw up to clear her esophagus. She was so addicted, however, that she would pick the pills out of her vomit and swallow them again.

On another occasion, Mary cut a Lortab pill in half and was caught by her husband licking the dust off the dresser where she had just cut the pill.

"I devoted my life to drugs," said Mary, who wanted the name "Mary" used for this article because she and others like her were referred to as "Mary Poppin Pills" in jail.

Mary's addiction to Lortab highlights a growing problem in Utah and the United States. About a quarter of the people enrolled in the Davis County Drug Court program are there for Lortab and other prescription medication addiction, said Davis County Sheriff's detective John Carter.

"It's probably the legal drug of choice," concurred Adult Probation and Parole spokesman Bradley Bassi. "It's one of the most prevalently abused legal drugs."

DEA resident agent-in-charge Barry Jamison said his office has seen limited Lortab problems in Utah over the past several months but added, "We know the history of this drug. It has exploded in other areas. It hasn't exploded here yet, but it has the potential."

What sets Lortab abusers apart from typical cocaine and heroin addicts is the type of people who abuse the drug. Drug agents say Lortab abusers come from every race, every sex, every income level and every social status.

Lortab is an opiate like Vicodin, another abused painkiller medication. The most common abuser is a Caucasian woman between the ages of 20 and 40.

In Mary's case, she used her LDS background to her advantage. She said she would purposely seek out LDS doctors and sit in their lobby reading an LDS Church magazine. "They would give me anything I wanted.

"We're little Mormon women. What could we possibly be doing wrong?" she said in a sarcastic voice.

As her abuse grew, so did her guilt. Mary said she would teach a lesson about the Word of Wisdom in her Young Women's class while high on Lortab. Then she would go home and pop more pills to help her deal with the guilt.

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