Long Island pharmacy shooting likely started as Oxy heist
Darren Foster is a Vanguard producer who worked on "The OxyContin Express" and its follow-up, "Gateway to Heroin."
In what looks like a pill heist gone wrong, four people were killed in a pharmacy robbery on Long Island on Sunday.
We look at the growing national trend of addicted thieves knocking over drug stores in tonight's "Vanguard" episode, "Gateway to Heroin." Assaults on pharmacies are nothing new, but over the last decade there's been a pretty clear target: Oxycodone, best known by its brand name, OxyContin.
In "Gateway to Heroin," we meet with Johnny Hickey, one of Boston's original "Oxy Bandits," who admittedly helped fuel a growing Oxy epidemic in Massachusetts. (As you'll see, Johnny has since reformed himself and made a film about his life called "Oxymorons").
According to The New York Times, there have been 1,800 drug-store robberies nationally in just the last three years. And they are often in rural or suburban communities. So while the assault on Long Island is brutal and cold-blooded in scale, it's not out of the norm.
Last summer, I was at a barbecue on Long Island (where I grew up) and spoke to a friend of mine who is now a detective with the Suffolk County police. He suggested we do a follow up story to "The OxyContin Express" set on Long Island. We wound up choosing to do tonight's follow up in Massachusetts instead, but the story is much the same: Prescription drugs like Oxy have become the drug of choice for a generation. And it's got to come from somewhere.
Unless of course, you turn to cheaper alternative that satisfies the same addiction: heroin.
Watch the trailer for "Gateway to Heroin" below:
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kennymotown
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Very sad that a drug has caused the death of innocent people, give up this war on drugs as Jimmy Carter has said.
http://current.com/news/93295314_jimmy-carter-call-off-the-global-drug-war.htm
- 11 months ago
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kennymotown
