Hardin County Sheriff Tom Seiner sets enforcement priority

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Hardin County Sheriff's Department is making illicit sale and use of prescription drugs an enforcement priority.

Deputies and Elizabethtown police arrested Dorothy M. (Geisler) Carmickle, 38, Rosiclare, in downtown Elizabethtown about 10 p.m. Thursday charging her with delivery of a controlled substance.

Sheriff Tom Seiner said Carmickle sold suspected prescription hydrocodone to an informant.

Carmickle is currently on probation for the same charge in a 2007 arrest by deputies, Seiner said.

Seiner anticipates more similar arrests in the coming months as the county fights an increasingly deadly drug problem.

"It's been quite a problem for us. We had four deaths this summer and all four were linked to prescription drugs," Seiner said.

"They have health cards and see the doctor saying their back hurts or their kids are getting on their nerves, get the pills and sell them," Seiner said.

There is money to be made. Seiner said people usually sell the pills for $5 or $10.

"That's our biggest problem right now and people are dying from it," Seiner said.

The narcotic painkiller hydrocodone and the sedative Xanax. The county also has had people overdose on "morphine" patches, Seiner said.

- DeNeal receives e-mail at bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.