Vice and Narcotics Unit makes largest OxyContin drug bust
Pasco County Sheriff's Vice and Narcotics Unit detectives made the largest OxyContin drug drug bust in the county's history Jan. 24, 2001 with the arrest of a couple accused of selling the prescription drug. Deputies arrested Santa Nina Bennett, 55, and husband Alan Bennett, 53, and confiscated 1,010 pills with a street value of up to $20,000. The drug is used to treat pain. The couple was booked into the Land O' Lakes jail with a bail of $150,000 each.

Alleged Oxycontin Drug Dealers Arrested in Oxycontin Drug Bust: $120,000 Was Seized
CINCINNATI -- A pair of suspected drug dealers are behind bars in Butler County after an Oxycontin drug bust.

Earl Calvin , Jr., whom detectives say was a major supplier of Oxycontin on the streets of Butler Co., was arrested. His alleged accomplice James Witt, was also arrested WLWT Eyewitness News 5 reported. Oxycontin is a powerful drug used almost exclusively for patients in the late stages of Cancer treatment, WLWT Eyewitness News 5's Mark Kahler reported. It is highly addictive and intense, much like Crack Cocaine, but the high lasts longer, WLWT reported.

"It takes a lot of time to get in with somebody like that, but once you're in, once you gain his confidence. He's making purchases from you, both from his house and from the shop," Jeff Riegert of the Butler County sherrif's department said. Riegert said that the department decided to offer Cavin and Witt a case of 600 Oxycontin pills. "The street value on this package right here is $15,000," Riegert said. Detectives said that Cavin offered $6,000 for the pills. Kahler reported Cavin also obtained pills from phony patients.

"If they can go to a doctor and they'll come up with 'oh, my hip hurts, or my leg hurts or my knee hurts' and doctors will give them prescriptions for these Oxycontin's," Marianne Ivey of the Health Alliance said. If Cavin is convicted, the $120,000 that was seized from him will fund the Butler Co. drug task force, Kahler reported. Detectives are looking for the phony patients and possibly even the doctors who wrote the prescriptions, so there are more arrests possible, WLWT reported. If Cavin, who has previously been convicted of dealing drugs is found guilty, he faces a mandatory minimum of ten years in prison, Kahler reported.