Tragedy strikes twice

No matter what he put in his body or how he acquired it, Alexander McCain would never have seen himself as an addict.

After all, he wasn’t snorting cocaine or injecting heroin. He was taking things anyone can get from the doctor.

“It’s so much easier to party by popping an OxyContin in your mouth instead of shooting up with heroin,” said Alexander’s brother, Steven Dick. “It makes it seem like you’re not doing drugs. Alexander would never consider himself a druggy, even though he was doing drugs all the time.”

Alexander’s mother, Ahwatukee Foothills resident Linda Lakey, described the 23-year-old as a quiet man; a football star with plenty of friends and a big heart. He was able to keep his drug use from almost everybody, save four individuals from whom nothing can ultimately be hidden.

“Cause of death: acute salicylate intoxication,” wrote a quartet of forensic assistants with the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office. “Other: acute alcohol intoxication.”

In layman’s terms, Alexander died from overdosing on alcohol and aspirin. The latter is a major ingredient in Soma Compound, a prescription-only medicine and, according to his family, one of Alexander’s favorite drugs to abuse.

The only thing more tragic than the 23-year-old Alexander’s death in October 2001 was how terribly similar it was to the death of his 22-year-old brother Kyle Dick in December 1998. The forensic report on Kyle was more blunt in its assessment: “Cause of death: Drug intoxication.”

“No real stigma”

Prescription drug abuse has become largely the domain of the middle and upper classes, with the Drug Enforcement Agency noting that such abuse is “sometimes viewed as a 'white collar’ addiction.”

Popping prescription drugs has been picked up locally by teenagers as well.

“There’s been an enormous increase of abuse of prescription medicine by adolescents,” said Dr. Brian Tiffany, chairman of emergency services for Chandler Regional Hospital. “Prescription drug abuse in the last five years has seen a big upswing. It’s always been there, but it’s increased in middle-class neighborhoods.”

Indeed, between January and August of 2005 there were only two calls to the Phoenix Police Department involving prescription drugs in Ahwatukee Foothills. In the same months in 2006 and 2007, that number is up to seven. One of those calls, in February of this year, was to Desert Vista High School.

That it afflicts the middle and upper classes is somewhat unsurprising. Ordering from shady online pharmacies requires a credit card, and obtaining the drugs in Mexico requires ready cash and a vehicle. In addition to that, taking a pill seems more benign than smoking, snorting or injecting a substance.

“There’s no real stigma to taking prescription drugs,” Tiffany said. “They’re a problem, and they’re readily available.”

Soma in particular has seen an increase in popularity lately.

“Soma has probably been, in the past three or four years, the biggest of any of them,” said Jean Kennedy, Desert Vista’s school nurse. “If students have taken them they’ve taken too many or a handful.”

Ultimately, that’s what would end the lives of Alexander McCain and Kyle Dick.

“They would take handfuls of them at a time,” Steven Dick said. “That’s what their friends told them to take.”

“It just goes so quick”

From four sons to two in less than three years has taken a heavy toll on Linda Lakey, the mother of Alexander, Kyle, 39-year-old Steven and 27-year-old Taylor McCain.

“Kyle died first, and about two years later Alexander died,” Lakey said. “Alexander had never drank or done anything; he was very athletic. But he tried to bond with Kyle’s friends after Kyle died, and before we even knew it he was taking the same drugs Kyle had.

“It just goes so quick.”

Thanks to the proximity of the Mexican border as well as the explosion of fly-by-night online pharmacies in the last few years, prescription drug availability has never been higher and their abuse never more common.

“Mexican pharmacies located along the U.S.-Mexico border are a primary source of prescription narcotics, depressants and steroids distributed in and abused throughout the Southwest Region,” reads the National Drug Intelligence Center’s 2007 Drug Threat Assessment.

“San Diego is one of the most significant pharmaceutical smuggling areas in the country, owing to its proximity to Tijuana, which has 10 times the number of pharmacies needed to support its population.”

Indeed, cross-border trips are how Alexander McCain and Kyle Dick purchased their drugs of choice: Soma and Valium, brand names for carisoprodol and diazepam respectively. This is known because the brothers admitted as much to Lakey.

“They told me,” she said. “Once I knew something anyhow they would be totally honest with me.”

“I kept screaming at him, hoping he would wake up”

Soma Compound, or carisoprodol and aspirin, is a muscle relaxant that produces euphoric effects if taken in high enough dosage. Valium, or diazepam, like all drugs under the “benzodiazepine” umbrella, is primarily used as an anti-anxiety drug.

According to the Partnership For a Drug-Free America, those pills, as well as a host of opiate (that is, derived from opium) painkillers like OxyContin (oxycodone), Vicodin (hydrocodone) and Darvocet (propoxyphene) have become increasingly popular among recreational drug users.

“Rates of nonmedical use of prescription painkillers are relatively high among teenagers,” reports the DEA, adding that “annual use of OxyContin by 12th-graders has risen from 4.0 percent in 2002 to 5.5 percent in 2005.”

All of the drugs are central nervous system depressants, which relax all muscles in the body - including the heart and lungs. Adding alcohol to the mix can speed up the breakdown of the drugs in the body, enhancing the effects of both the alcohol and the drug, sometimes leading to death. Autopsy results showed both Alexander and Kyle had diazepam (Valium) and alcohol in their bodies at the time of death.

“Benzodiazepines and alcohol are a notoriously dangerous combination,” Dr. Brian Tiffany said. “Sure, you can take 10 or 20 Valiums and you may be OK, but throw three or four shots of liquor on that and your lungs stop working.”

Dying from prescription drugs can go either way. Lakey found her son Kyle McCain - who, his autopsy would reveal, had taken morphine, Valium, Darvocet and alcohol - slouched comfortably at a friend’s house.

“He had his feet up on the coffee table and his arm on the armrest, and he was just gone,” Lakey recalled. “I kept screaming at him, hoping he would wake up.”

Alexander, conversely, died much more slowly in the hospital.

“The last thing he said to me was, 'Mom, the federales are after me,’” Lakey said. “He was hallucinating because his kidneys were failing.

“His last thoughts were of going to Mexico. I guess if you’re that addicted to something it’s on your mind all the time.”

“It’s so easy for them to die”

For want of having a good time, Alexander McCain and Kyle Dick shattered what was once a strong, tight-knit family.

“It’s like two broken links in a chain,” said their brother Steven. “It’s hard to stay a family after a loss.”

Their mother, once described by Steven as “mother to everybody,” including her sons’ friends, has closed herself off.

“She’s kind of ostracized in a certain way,” Steven explained. “She’s isolated herself, and that brings on more depression and more isolation.

“My mom deserves so much more respect than she’s got since my brothers died. They think it was some kind of mistake in their development process. They don’t realize (kids) have this whole other life, different friends and all these influences.”

Lakey blames a lack of information and knowledge among parents for the continued popularity of prescription drugs abuse among teens, as well as teens’ ignorance of how deadly such drugs can be.

“I just want people to pay attention, and for children to listen to what an effect they can cause if they die,” she said. “And it’s so easy for them to die from this.”

Her son Taylor McCain agrees.

“I miss my brothers,” he said. “I wish people would pay attention to what their kids are doing.”

Kyle’s and Alexander’s death will forever leave a hole in the lives of their friends and families. Alexander’s overdose in particular will haunt someone for years to come: six months after he died, Alexander’s wife gave birth to Alexander McCain Jr.

Jason Ludwig can be reached at (480) 898-7916 or jludwig@aztrib.com.