OTHER VICTIMS OF OXYCONTIN ABUSE

Health officials fear attempts to crack down on the misuse of the powerful
painkiller might have adverse effects on patients who really need the drug.

While abuse of the potent prescription painkiller OxyContin is on the rise
in the suburbs, health experts are worried about what that means for those
who use the drug legitimately.

Federal law enforcement officials have said they're considering limiting
supply of the synthetic opiate, and efforts to restrict its use have
already begun in some areas.

An alliance of hospitals in Cincinnati, for example, has limited the use of
OxyContin to cancer patients, with only a few exceptions. Six states in the
East - not including Pennsylvania - have made it more difficult for
patients to get OxyContin through Medicaid, the national health insurance
program for the poor.

And local health officials are worried that, because of all the publicity,
the supply of OxyContin may be limited in the future for people who need
the drug for medical reasons.

Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut-based company that makes OxyContin, doesn't
have plans to take it off the market, officials said. In recent months, it
has been waging a public relations campaign against illegal use of the drug.

On July 30, Purdue announced it would provide tamper-resistant prescription
pads to doctors in Pennsylvania. The company has made the pads available in
five other states, and says it plans to expand the program.

And last week, the firm said it has provided 500,000 doctors and 60,000
pharmacists with brochures on preventing OxyContin abuse, and distributed
kits that help physicians distinguish between true "pain sufferers and
pretenders."

OxyContin came to public awareness in March with the arrest of a Bensalem
doctor on charges of selling fraudulent prescriptions for OxyContin and
other controlled drugs.

Richard G. Paolino, 58, was scheduled to stand trial tomorrow, but his case
was postponed.

The case has been delayed because handwriting samples sent to the FBI
haven't yet been returned, according to Bucks County Chief Deputy District
Attorney Gary Gambardella.

Witnesses told police that Paolino's Hulmeville Road office was often
packed - standing room only - with people seeking drugs. He allegedly wrote
prescriptions for cash to anyone who wanted them, including children as
young as 15, police said. His license was revoked in November.

If convicted, the physician faces up to 27 years in prison and more than
$500,000 in fines. He is being held in Bucks County prison on $1 million bail.

Paolino's case isn't the only one that has put a spotlight on OxyContin.

In March, Warminster police reported the theft of 60 OxyContin pills from a
local nursing home. Such robberies aren't surprising, according to District
Attorney Diane Gibbons, but they don't make for a "huge source" of the
drug. "It's easier to forge a prescription than commit burglary," she said.

County drug treatment specialists however are worried about efforts to
limit the distribution of OxyContin in the wake of such publicity.

"OxyContin has received a lot of press, and it's true it's being abused,"
said Margaret Hanna, executive director of the Bucks County Council on
Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. "But it's an extremely effective medication
for people with chronic pain. We have to be very careful about not
overreacting."

OxyContin contains a greater amount of its active ingredient, oxycodone,
than several related drugs, such as Percodan and Percocet. When the
OxyContin pills are ingested normally, the drug is released over a 12-hour
period.

But abusers have learned that crushing the pills and snorting, eating or
injecting the powder can produce a euphoric high not unlike that of heroin.
Oxy or OC - as it's known on the street - is also highly addictive and
dangerous, especially when used with alcohol and other drugs, officials said.

The number of emergency room visits related to oxycodone doubled in the
three years following OxyContin's arrival on the market in 1996, the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration says. Such visits had been stable from 1990
to 1996.

Twelve of 61 overdose deaths in Bucks were attributed, in part, to
oxycodone use last year, according to the county coroner. The drug has been
linked to two overdose deaths so far this year.

In Montgomery County, eight drug-related deaths since January involved
oxycodone, county Coroner Halbert Fillinger said. Yet while the numbers are
rising, he said, abuse of prescription drugs is nothing new.

"It would be horrible if OxyContin were pulled from the market," Fillinger
said. "The junkie will always find something else, but the people who
really need it will be deprived."

Bucks County statistics show oxy was listed as the primary drug of abuse in
less than 5 percent of the 3,590 admissions to addiction treatment centers
from January through June. Another 4 percent listed oxy as a second or
third drug of choice.

That puts it in a category that the drug and alcohol council terms "others"
- - well behind alcohol and heroin, the No. 1 and No. 2 drugs of abuse in the
region. Hanna, the council's director, said she doesn't expect oxy use to
skyrocket because the pills are so expensive.

A 160-milligram OxyContin pill will sell for more than $100 on the street.
Hanna said many oxy users quickly turn to heroin because they can't afford
the oxy habit.

An official with the Renewal Centers, a residential treatment facility for
teens in Upper Bucks, said young abusers tend to favor "party drugs" like
methamphetamine, or speed. "OxyContin is a growing problem, but we have not
been overwhelmed with it," the center's clinical director, Steve Tennessee,
said.

Local law enforcers, meanwhile, say an OxyContin explosion isn't likely. DA
Gibbons said OxyContin's ubiquity is also its biggest weakness. An illicit
prescription may allow a user access to liberal supplies of the drug, but
it also makes the activity easy to trace, she said.

Staff writer Laurie Mason contributed to this report.