Two Snow Hill residents were charged with trafficking Friday after one used a fraudulent prescription in Belhaven.

A press release from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Drug Unit said Brittany Michelle Midgette, 23, of Peanut Road in Snow Hill, used a fake prescription to purchase 150 prescription pain pills at a Belhaven pharmacy. The prescription was for 30 mg Oxycodone.

“The 30-mg pill is a high-dosage unit that’s used for severe cases — people receiving post-surgery prescriptions, cancer treatment, people with very severe illnesses. It’s not a common dosage unit or strength (prescribed) for a back issue,” said a spokesman for the drug unit.

Investigators were doing surveillance on Midgette and Usiris Uriel Hernandez, 25, also of Snow Hill, when the pills were purchased, and would later stop the two as they left the pharmacy, the release said.

A search of the vehicle Hernandez was driving turned up the prescription filled at the pharmacy, as well as more Oxycodone and marijuana, the release said.

The value of the Oxycodone was estimated at $4,500, as the 30 mg pills go for a higher dollar amount.

“People on the street really like a high-volume dosage unit,” the spokesman said.

That the two had traveled from Snow Hill to fill the prescription came as no surprise to investigators, the spokesman said.

‘It’s common to for those passing fraudulent prescriptions to travel to outlying pharmacies in an effort to avoid detection at home,” he said.

Midgette and Hernandez were charged with level II trafficking in opiates by transport, level II trafficking in opiates by possession, conspiracy to traffic in opiates and obtain a prescription by fraud. Hernandez was also charged with possession of schedule II controlled substance, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Hernandez was confined in the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $40,000 secured bond. Midgette was confined in the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $25,000 secured bond.

Investigators said that the connections Diversion Officer Greg Rowe has with the healthcare community allow cases like this to end in an arrest. Prescription pain medications are the most abused drugs in the United States—according to the Centers for Disease Control, more people die of prescription pain medication overdoses than any other drug.

“This is just the perfect example of what (Rowe’s) position does and how that resource works,” the spokesman said. “Without him, we wouldn’t have made the case, in other words.”