LAYTON -- Layton police want residents to be aware that more people die from prescription drug overdoses across the country than from heroin and cocaine.
"Prescription painkillers are the drug choice for many users," said Layton Police Lt. Quinn Moyes.
That is why officials are concerned when they arrest local residents who are falsifying prescriptions to get painkillers.
Recently, Layton police arrested, and booked into Davis County Jail, Brandy Ann Wood, 29, of Layton, on five counts of falsifying a prescription of a controlled substance.
Clearfield police were notified Wood was in jail and added five counts of the same charge.
Wood was released from jail on $10,000 bail, said Deputy Davis County Attorney Steve Major.
The case is being reviewed by the Davis County Attorney's Office for formal charges, Major said.
Wood has already been charged by the state's Department of Commerce with four counts of third-degree felony falsifying a prescription of a controlled substance. Those offenses occurred in March 2008, according to court documents.
Layton police were called by a Walmart pharmacy Dec. 21 because workers became suspicious of a woman who was picking up prescription painkillers, Moyes said.
Officers investigated and discovered that the doctor's office the pharmacy said was calling in the prescription actually had not called in the prescription. And the driver's license of the woman who picked up the prescription was Wood's, Moyes said.
Clearfield Assistant Police Chief Greg Krusi said a Macey's pharmacist became suspicious when Wood kept coming in to pick up prescriptions that were in someone else's name last month. She had received 290 hydrocodone pills, he said.
"A 'Becky' called in the prescriptions or faxed them, and then Brandy Wood picked them up every time," Krusi said.
Krusi said detectives believe the person the prescriptions were listed for had nothing to do with the case.
Police said they do not know if Wood was using the pills herself or selling them.
Layton police are also trying to keep prescription drugs out of the hands of teenagers and others who may abuse them.
They have a bin bolted to their lobby floor for area residents to dispose of prescription medications that are no longer needed, Moyes said.
In December, the police department collected 72 pounds of prescription medications and disposed of them at the Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District, he said.
"That amount is not getting flushed down the sewer system and contaminating our water," Moyes said, "and most importantly, it's staying out of medicine cabinets, so teenagers and others don't have access to it to use or to sell it."
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