June 7, 2004
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Doubts raised about head of drug program
EASTERN KENTUCKY BUREAU
WHITESBURG - When a local chapter of Eastern Kentucky's newest drug-fighting program chose its chairman this year, it picked a dentist who had been fined by state regulators for failing to document narcotics he had prescribed to patients.
Dr. David Narramore paid the $500 fine in January as part of an agreement to settle a 17-count complaint that claimed he had overprescribed painkillers. Investigators said the dentist prescribed narcotics 20 times for a patient who was already in a drug-abuse treatment program.
Narramore, the Republican Party chairman in Letcher County, said in a recent interview that the Kentucky Board of Dentistry's decision to drop the more serious charges against him amounted to vindication.
UNITE, which stands for Unlawful Narcotics Investigation, Treatment and Education, is a $16 million federally financed program initiated by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, that is supposed to bring police, drug rehabilitation groups and grass-roots coalitions of citizens together in a concerted street-level war on illegal narcotics.
Most of the group's original grass-roots members have stopped coming to the meetings.
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