OXYCONTIN MAKER TACKLES DRUG'S ABUSE IN S.W. VA.

'Let's be clear. The issue is drug abuse, not the drug,' Purdue Pharma
official says OxyContin maker tackles drug's abuse in S.W. Va.

Abusers grind up the painkilling tablets and then snort or inject the
powder - creating a heroin-like addiction.

The maker of OxyContin, a painkiller that has become a prescription for
crime in far Southwest Virginia, says new initiatives for curbing abuse of
the drug will be announced today.

Robin Hogen, executive director of public relations for Purdue Pharma L.P.,
declined to elaborate, saying the company wants to share its ideas with
Attorney General Mark Earley and other law enforcement officials this
afternoon before going public.

Earley called for the meeting last month, citing "an epidemic of addiction
and a surge in criminal behavior" because of misuse of the drug, which is
prescribed to cancer patients and sufferers of pain.

In rapidly increasing numbers, abusers have been grinding up the synthetic
morphine tablets and then snorting or injecting the powder - creating a
heroin-like addiction that often drives them to commit crimes to support
their habits.

More than 30 people have died from overdoses of the drug since 1997 in
Southwest Virginia.

At today's meeting in Richmond, more than 15 people will join Earley. Among
them: the executive vice president of Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, the
attorney general of Maryland, representatives from the attorney general
offices in West Virginia and Ohio, an official with the Kentucky State
Police, and several law enforcement officials from Lee County.

Issues of criminal activity, prescription and marketing of the drug, and
educational efforts aimed at both the public and the health care community
will be discussed. "It's going to be wide open," said David Botkins, a
spokesman for Earley.

Although the meeting will be closed to the public, details of the
discussion will be summarized afterward.

Recent media reports that Purdue Pharma is developing a new version of the
medication that would not produce a "high" are not entirely accurate, Hogen
said. Such a drug would be a new product and not a variation of OxyContin.

"The company has committed millions of dollars to research a new form of
painkiller that will be resistent to abuse," Hogen said.

If such a painkiller were developed, it would take at least three years for
it to gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Meanwhile, discussions such as the one today will center on how to best
keep the drug off the black market without removing it from the medicine
cabinets of legitimate patients.

"Let's be clear. The issue is drug abuse, not the drug," Hogen said.

Many people who take OxyContin for legitimate reasons with no ill effects
have expressed concerns that widespread publicity about dangers of the
painkiller might prompt increased regulation of the drug.

Patients are "sort of the silent victims in this whole drug abuse craze,"
Hogen said.

While acknowledging the drug is an effective painkiller, law enforcement
officials have said they must still confront the reality that, for whatever
reason, it has become the drug of choice for many addicts - not to mention
the common denominator in countless crimes.

The drug has hit hardest in the coalfields of Southwest Virginia, a region
that lacks the established heroin networks of larger cities but has a large
number of people on pain medication from ailments caused by coal mining and
other hard labor industries.

Some fear that OxyContin could do to the coalfields what crack has done to
some inner-city neighborhoods.

In Tazewell County, for example, nearly a dozen drug stores have been
robbed of the drug, and officials say at least 70 percent of the county's
crime is directly related to OxyContin.

Earlier this week, a federal grand jury in Abingdon indicted six people on
charges of distributing OxyContin as part of a continuing criminal
enterprise. On Wednesday, the same grand jury charged Bland physician
Freeman Lowell Clark with 115 counts of illegally prescribing the drug.

The Lee Coalition for Health is holding a town meeting at 7:30 p.m. March 9
at Lee High School to discuss what fliers are calling "the epidemic of
OxyContin abuse."