OXYCONTIN OFFERS AN EDUCATION IN DRUG-ABUSE PREVENTION

The Drug's Maker Says It Just Never Figured People Would Crush The Pill To
Get High. Now Companies Should Know.

ONE LESSON to be learned from the devastating wave of OxyContin abuse
sweeping through parts of the country: If a way can be found to get high by
misusing prescription drugs, abusers will find it and do it.

Makers of addictive narcotics should assume that this will be the case, and
do what they can to thwart abuse.

A no-brainer? Not, apparently, for Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical
company that manufactures OxyContin.

By crushing that potent narcotic, a pill designed to gradually release the
painkilling drug oxycodone over 12 hours, people can inject or snort it to
get a quick high. And to get addicted. And sometimes dead.

In rural Southwest Virginia, law-enforcement officers blame OxyContin abuse
for a wave of drug-related deaths and crimes.

The New York Times reported this week that Purdue Pharma knew before it put
OxyContin on the market that other drug manufacturers had seen their
products similarly misused and reformulated the drugs to make them less
open to abuse. Those companies added what is known as an antagonist, a
chemical that, if crushed, will block the drug's narcotic effect.

Purdue Pharma officials said they did not consider including such a
chemical compound when developing OxyContin, though the company is working
now on an alternative time-released painkiller with an antagonist. The
officials said that, initially, they simply did not expect people to crush
the pill.

Manufacturers should be wiser now.

Doctors say drug makers could take simple steps to decrease the diversion
of narcotic drugs for illegal purposes. Those steps should be taken as a
matter of routine.

Sad experience suggests that if a drug can be abused, it will be abused.
Manufacturers will not be able to thwart the truly determined, despite the
dangers of misusing narcotics. But drug makers can, and should, make it
harder to misuse them.