BIG PHARMA BEHIND DRUG PUSH

Re: Addicts Kicking Heroin With Pain Killers, April 30.

Pharmaceutical opioids are now the commonest drugs of addiction
because intense marketing by the pharmaceutical companies and lax
prescribing by physicians has introduced large numbers of susceptible
people to their addictive potential. For more than a decade,
pharmaceutical companies have invested heavily in marketing a concept
called "Non-Cancer Pain," with large payments to physician pain
specialists to promote these products to other MDs at free
pharmaceutical events for doctors.

This investment has paid off because physicians now prescribe the new
expensive opiates for even the most minor aches and sprains.
Ironically, patients who try to come off drugs like OxyContin
(including two patients in my practice in the last two weeks) complain
of very severe muscle pain when often the original symptoms for which
doctors prescribed the medication was for relatively minor pain.

Dr. Paul Cary

Cambridge, Ont.