PRESCRIPTION FOR TROUBLE

OxyContin Abuse Can Do A Lot Of Damage In 3 Years

The manufacturer of the controversial painkiller OxyContin said
yesterday that a tamper-proof formulation of the drug is about three
years away.

That's a long time, considering the damaging fallout from the highly
potent wonder drug that becomes a nightmare when abused.

A reformulated, abuse-resistant drug by Purdue Pharma -- now the
target of at least 13 lawsuits in five states -- may be the only
permanent remedy to a sickness that is gradually spreading from
Appalachia to other sections of the country.

In one of the first objective reports on abuse of OxyContin and its
main ingredient oxycodone, an Appalachian drug task force found:

n In a 17-month period, between January 2000 and May 2001, according
to the Kentucky medical examiner's office, oxycodone was present in
69 deaths. In 36 of those deaths, the level of oxycodone was toxic,
which means that the person was more than likely abusing the drug.

n Kentucky's 69 pharmacy robberies and burglaries for OxyContin is
the highest in the Appalachian region.

n OxyContin use in Kentucky is 53 percent higher than the national average.

n The number of OxyContin prescriptions dispensed by Kentucky
pharmacists or to Kentucky residents rose from 82,881 in 1999 to
156,560 in 2000.

Those prescriptions translated into a near doubling in the number of
OxyContin tablets sold from 4.9 million a year to 9.4 million a year,
just in Kentucky.

As more pills became legitimately available, so did the opportunity
for misuse and addiction.

Law enforcement officials, social service agencies and doctors can
only do so much to keep OxyContin abuse under control.

Police are staking out pain clinics in search of frequent clients.

Doctors, fearful they might be accused of helping addicts, are on
guard for signs that their patients are overmedicating themselves or
becoming black-market purveyors by ``doctor-shopping'' to illegally
acquire more pills.

Pharmacies and their employees are more worried than ever that
they'll be the targets of OxyContin-seeking criminals. Some
drugstores have taken to stocking only small amounts of the
painkiller.

Patients, too, are afraid of being robbed.

In view of the devastating effects of the drug's misuse, it's too bad
Purdue Pharma didn't develop an abuse-resistant version before
putting OxyContin on the market in 1995.