DEADLY DRUG OR LIFESAVER?

OxyContin Should Be Available To Those Who Need It For Pain Relief

A Maine prison guard from Gorham last week became the latest user of the
painkiller OxyContin to sue the drug's manufacturer over his addiction.
William E. Bushey said he was unable to work and went into personal
bankruptcy after he got hooked on OxyContin his doctor had prescribed for
back pain.

The suit and others like it around the country suggest a need for close
scrutiny of who gets the drug and close supervision of those using it. In
the hands of a person suffering from short-term pain or someone with a
history of substance abuse, the drug can be deadly. This point has been
made repeatedly in suits like Bushey's and in reports of drug-related
robberies and assaults.

There's another point to be made about OxyContin though, and it's often
overlooked. That's the fact that in the right hands, it works.

OxyContin is an extra-strength prescription painkiller designed for people
with chronic, severe pain - people with conditions like cancer and
debilitating arthritis. It has a time-release formula that allows each pill
to work for 12 hours, which is an improvement over painkillers that must be
taken more often.

Susan Gold of Saco, a founder of the Chronic Pain Support Group and member
of the American Chronic Pain Association's members advisory committee, said
the drug has been "a godsend" for some members of her group.

"Without it," says Gold, who does not use OxyContin, "their quality of life
would be zero."

Because of the time-release formula the drug is not inherently addictive
the way morphine can be. The only way to get enough of the painkilling
ingredient at once to produce a high is to crush the pill - which is what
Bushey says he wound up doing.

OxyContin can be abused and has been, particularly in Maine and other rural
states where it's easier to come by than many illegal drugs. No doubt it's
been prescribed to people who had no business taking it. But that doesn't
mean we need to mount a campaign aimed at getting rid of the drug itself.
And at a time when prescription costs are already a heavy burden for many
Mainers, we don't need dozens of lawsuits whose end result could be a
higher price for OxyContin.

What we do need is assurance that the drug maker is working on a
formulation that won't be as easy to abuse. (It says it is.) And we need
better education about drugs and their place in pain relief. Doctors need
more information, and so do consumers who are the targets of drug company
advertising.

Even a scary-sounding drug like OxyContin has a place on some medicine
cabinet shelves. We should guard it in those places as much as we target it
in others.