OxyContin: the news only gets worse

As of Nov. 1, 2001, the Drug Enforcement Administration had received autopsy reports from 31 states regarding 803 deaths related to the drug OxyCodone -- the principal ingredient in the prescription drug OxyContin. Now comes word that in Trumbull County alone, 14 deaths last year were related to OxyContin -- more even than homicides. The rapidly growing threat that the prescription drug poses cannot be underestimated.
Unlike cocaine, marijuana and heroin, which are totally illegal, OxyContin is prescribed by physicians for the treatment of chronic pain and sold in pharmacies. When properly used as medicine, the drug has a time-release formulation that releases the pain-killer gradually into the system. But drug abusers have discovered ways to circumvent the time-release function to give them a rush similar to that provided by heroin, and like heroin, OxyContin is highly addictive. The fact that OxyContin is a prescription drug complicates its interdiction.
As Asa Hutchison, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the U.S. Senate caucus on international narcotics control, the "highly potent drug has become the number one prescribed Schedule II narcotic in the United States."
Yes, the drug is stolen from pharmacies and obtained by forged prescriptions, but in large measure the problem is exacerbated by doctors who improperly prescribe the drug and wittingly or unwittingly allow its illegal distribution.
Trumbull County arrests
Last year, 29 people in Trumbull County including one physician were arrested in what law enforcement officials politely called a "large-scale pharmaceutical diversion ring." Investigators believed 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 the illicit dealers
Given the drug's prevalence in the Valley, perhaps the deaths should come as no surprise.
According to the DEA, the five states with the lowest number of per capita OxyContin prescriptions have long standing prescription monitoring programs in place. The majority of states reporting significant abuse and diversion issues are those without such programs.
Considering the profit Purdue Pharma, the sole manufacturer of OxyContin, has made on the millions of prescriptions written each year, it would be a show of good faith if the company would help fund such prescription monitoring programs.
Purdue Pharma is working on a new formulation of the drug and, thanks to Food and Drug Administration pressure, has agreed to inform doctors of the dangers of OxyContin's abuse and diversion potential. However, given the rising death toll, a warning on a package insert is hardly enough.