Law enforcement has new drug to worry about

The prescription painkiller OxyContin has been called the "new heroin," and if the experiences of other cities in Ohio and West Virginia with the highly addictive medication are any indication, the arrest of 29 people in Trumbull County on secret indictments related to the drug means even more trouble to come.
For cancer patients and others with intractable pain, the drug has proved to provide relief unavailable with other medicines, but the euphoria that accompanies the analgesic effect has made it the new street drug of choice.
Inasmuch as one Trumbull County physician, Dr. Pedro Yap of Warren, has been arrested as part of what law enforcement officials politely called a "large-scale pharmaceutical diversion ring," it has become even more important for physicians and pharmacies to be alert to the misuse of the drug.
Investigation: The indictments came after a 10-month investigation into street sales of the drug by the Trumbull County Drug Task Force and Ohio State Board of Pharmacy. Investigators believe that as many as 36,500 OxyContin pills were obtained illegally by the ring from July 1999 to December 2000, yielding as much as $1.4 million to those dealing the drug illegally.
Product literature for the drug warns that the pills should be swallowed whole for the appropriate time-release benefit. But abusers have found that crushing the pills and sniffing the powder provides an intense high, which is rapidly addictive -- and also potentially deadly.
Last August, the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation urged pharmacists, physicians, and other prescribing professionals licensed to use extreme caution when prescribing or filling prescriptions for OxyContin because alteration and forgery of prescriptions for OxyContin are at an all-time high.
The New York Times reported last week that in a little over four years, OxyContin's sales have hit $1 billion, accounting for 80 percent of the revenue of manufacturer Purdue Pharma. Some officials have suggested that the company's marketing tactics were so aggressive that physicians with limited experience in pain management were prescribing the drug too readily, not realizing its highly addictive properties.
They should know by now.
Legislation: In Alabama, one state senator has prepared legislation that would limit the prescription writing for OxyContin to pain management specialists, a measure Purdue Pharma opposes. Dr. J. David Haddox, medical director of health policy for the company, argues that such a law would allow drug abusers to dictate drug policy.
Obviously, Haddox must protect his employer's bottom line, but clearly the manufacturer must accept some responsibility for the misuse of its product, whether that means a more aggressive program of public education, a reformulation of the product's delivery system or stronger warnings to prescribing physicians about the medication's dangers and high potential for abuse.