ADDICTS TURNING TO PAIN PATCHES

Despite triggering a growing list of overdose deaths, powerful
pain-control patches have become a rare but highly sought-after
narcotic on some Canadian streets, a new study indicates.

Resourceful addicts have even devised ingenious ways to defeat safety
features added recently to the Fentanyl patches, researchers discovered.

"This is bad news in many ways and ... I don't think anybody has a
clear idea what to do about it," said Dr. Benedikt Fischer of the B.C.
Centre for Addictions Research, one of the authors of the study. "This
is a killer drug out there, in many ways."

Known by the brand-name Duragesic, the patches are prescribed
primarily for treating chronic pain of cancer patients and others.
More than 600,000 prescriptions were sold in Canada last year,
according to IMS Health.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is several times more potent than
heroin, and even some Canadians using the product legally have died
accidentally because the patch was inappropriately employed or prescribed.

Health Canada recently recalled some of the products because of fears
the drug could leak out, endangering patients and those around them.

It has taken a toll among those abusing it, too. Fentanyl was cited in
112 deaths in Ontario alone between 2002 and 2004, with about half of
the fatalities blamed solely on overdose from the drug.

It has "enormous and unpredictable potency," said Dr.
Fischer.

"Respondents recognized the risk of 'going under' from extracted
Fentanyl use as very high, yet accepted this due to the drug's highly
desired effects," says the paper, about to be published in the
International Journal of Drug Policy.

The research looked at 25 street users in Toronto in mid-2007 and
found that over half had injected Fentanyl within the previous three
months. The manufacturers changed the formulation in 2005 from a
concentrated gel inside the patch to a "matrix" containing the active
ingredient, designed in part to prevent abuse.

However, users reported a simple technique to extract the drug. It
involved adding vinegar and water and either soaking, heating or
microwaving the patch, then retrieving the emerging liquid solution,
the researchers found.

Because Fentanyl is rare and relatively expensive, it is often shared
by users in ways that increase the risk of transmission of HIV and
other infectious disease, the study reported.