Published: January 16, 2008 11:23 pm            

North Star student charged with stealing drug 'lollipops'

BOSWELL — A North Star High School student is accused of stealing four prescription “lollipop” painkillers from his sick aunt after school administrators discovered the packaging in a boys’ room toilet.

State police said a 16-year-old boy is charged with theft and possession of drug paraphernalia for reportedly stealing four oral fentanyl citrate “lollipops,” a synthetic opiate prescribed as a pain reliever to cancer patients.

The flavored lozenges, which are 80 times more potent than morphine, are attached to a short handle; the medication is absorbed through the lining of the mouth, according to a 2004 issue of NDIC Narcotics Digest Weekly.

The boy tried to flush the packaging for the lollipops down a toilet at school after he ingested them Jan. 3, police said.

A teacher found the packaging, high school Principal Joseph Bradley said. “(The teacher) just knew it was something suspicious,” he said.

After further investigation, administrators turned the matter over to state police. Bradley found no reason to think other students may have had access to the stolen drugs.

“The ones missing from this family are all accounted for,” Bradley said, adding that he hasn’t heard of another such incident at the school.

        

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