OXYCONTIN DISCUSSED AT CONFERENCE IN ABINGDON

ABINGDON -- Social workers said they found a 4-year-old Southwest
Virginia girl earlier this year in a roach-infested trailer, her
20-year-old aunt dead in a bathtub of an OxyContin overdose. The
girl's mother lay nearby, passed out from abuse of the same
prescription painkiller. After the state removed the girl and put her
in foster care, her mother agreed to rehabilitation. But she later
died in rehab from an overdose of methadone and other drugs. Two
young adults dead and a little girl in foster care. Welcome to the
world of illegal OxyContin use as seen by area social workers. At
least 32 people died last year in Southwest Virginia from illegal
OxyContin use, Virginia State Police 1st Sgt. Landon Gibbs told a
substance abuse conference Wednesday at the Southwest Virginia Higher
Education Center. State Police Special Agent Steve Matney said
Tazewell County probably leads the region in illegal OxyContin
trafficking and use, followed by Buchanan and Russell counties. But
authorities said illegal OxyContin is available throughout the
region, even in the form of high-potency pills the manufacturer no
longer sells. "Over the past year and a half, we have seen a rise in
the numbers of Child Protective Services complaints we are getting,"
said Mary Adams-Norris of the Virginia Department of Social Services.
"We can directly relate them to substance abuse." She said social
services reports have increased 30 percent to 40 percent in Southwest
Virginia this year, with 40 percent to 50 percent of all cases
related to substance abuse. Tom Fritz, director of the department's
western region, said that was why the conference, funded by a federal
grant, was organized.

The region is based in Abingdon and includes 21 localities from
Christiansburg westward to Lee County. Alcoholism and the abuse of
heroin and marijuana also plague the area and often are cited in
children's services complaints, Fritz said. The case of the
4-year-old, as well as three other cases Adams-Norris recounted, all
occurred between March and July, she said. They involved
substance-abusing parents slapping and hitting their children and two
children who saw their mother beaten so badly by their father that
she was hospitalized. Adams-Norris left out locations and other
details to keep the children's identities confidential. About 250
people, mostly social workers, attended the conference, titled "A
Community Epidemic: A Matter of Substance." The conference is to
continue today and focuses on multidisciplinary, inter-agency
approaches to the "community problem" of substance abuse. "By that, I
mean the entire community.

Substance abuse, and particularly the abuse of OxyContin, is a health problem.

But if affects the entire community," said Harriet McCombs, a senior
mental health adviser with the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. The State Police officers recounted the story of a recent
Grundy pharmacy robbery.

They said a high-schooler held up the drugstore to get OxyContin,
knocking a small boy down and hijacking a car. Gibbs of the State
Police said prevention through education, treatment and the targeting
of suppliers, users and dealers were critical, and he lauded a
proposed Virginia prescription monitoring system. The system would be
similar to one in use in Kentucky and would alert police, doctors and
pharmacists to those who receive multiple prescriptions of OxyContin
and other drugs. Strother Smith, an attorney and Anglican Catholic
priest, said OxyContin can be a killer even when taken legally in
doses as prescribed. Usually, illicit users of the synthetic morphine
crush the pills and inject or snort them, but Smith said people have
"died from taking the oral prescription only." He said he supports
restricting OxyContin to hospitals and hospices. Smith and Abingdon
attorney Emmitt Yeary represent seven plaintiffs suing
Connecticut-based OxyContin-maker Perdue Pharma in federal court. The
seven claim they have suffered damages due to their own OxyContin
addictions or the abuse of the drug by family members.

They also claim Purdue Pharma marketed the drug aggressively while
downplaying its risks. A Perdue Pharma representative had been
scheduled to attend the conference but did not in light of the
pending litigation, organizers said. Yeary and Smith want the court
to force Purdue Pharma to open free clinics nationwide to help
OxyContin addicts. "They're filling up our graveyards, prisons,
welfare rolls and foster homes," Yeary alleged. "It's the ultimate
rape of the mountains and mountain people."