OPIATE OF THE STARS

With as much as 10 times the active opiate ingredient as other painkillers,
OxyContin was marketed as a powerful relief with a built-in safety measure:
a time-release formula that allowed the drug's opiate to be delivered over
a 12-hour period.

Other painkillers, including OxyContin's predecessor, Tylox, contained only
five mg of opiate, but oxy was made available in 20-, 40- or 80-mg doses.
An aggressive marketing campaign, cut with the euphoric powers of oxy,
mainlined the drug to the top of the pain-relief charts.

In 2000, 5.8 million oxy prescriptions were written in the United States.
But shortly after its debut, an unforeseen side effect surfaced among rural
teens in the United States, who discovered they could disable the
time-release mechanism by crushing the drug into powder. When snorted, oxy
delivered a powerful morphine-like high.

The pharmaceutical fad escaped the bounds of "just say no" after-school
specials. Suddenly, the drug of choice was one that was sold in convenient
screw-top bottles, not through back-alley deals.

In pockets of rural Maine, Pennsylvania and the Appalachian areas of
Virginia and Kentucky, many people who were disabled or chronically ill
suddenly found themselves with a highly marketable medicinal commodity.

There are 59 products available containing the opiate oxycodone, according
to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is the active ingredient in
brand medications such as Percocet, Percodan, Endocet, OxyCodan and OxyContin.

Among the best-known abusers of "hillbilly heroin" are Rush Limbaugh, the
right-wing U.S. radio host, and rocker Courtney Love, regularly in the news
for her off-stage performances.

Before admitting to his own addiction to OxyContin and other painkillers
last October, Limbaugh used his talk-show pulpit to rail against drugs and
insist that addicts be jailed.

Love told police that she was on OxyContin when she was arrested that same
month outside her ex-boyfriend's house.

Sold for $1 a milligram -- $40 for one 40-mg pill -- oxy became a quick and
painless alternative income. But as the pill's popularity spread, its
recreational side effect induced rashes of burglaries and armed robberies.

Some pharmacies stopped carrying the drug while doctors, such as the one
who stocked Winona Ryder's personal purse pharmacy, faced requests for oxy
prescriptions to treat even the most minor complaint. In 2003, a West
Virginia woman, Brianna Marie Burns, 23, was arrested on charges of trying
to sell her two-year-old son for $500 so she could buy oxy.

The Federal Drug Administration has linked the drug to approximately 400
deaths and in the summer of 2000, Purdue Pharma formed a team to deal with
the negative backlash of its top product.

Faced with several class-action lawsuits, the company was condemned by U.S.
Attorney-General John Ashcroft, who called OxyContin a "very, very
dangerous drug."

Company spokesmen claimed drug abuse was a societal ill, not linked to
specific products, but launched an aggressive $130-million US advertising
campaign to discourage the abuse of prescription narcotics, without naming
names.

Despite the company's attempts to play down the role of their product in
prescription pill popularity, OxyContin has become the "mother's little
helper" of the new millennium.

U.S. drug-monitoring companies list oxy as one of the most abused drugs in
higher socio-economic brackets, while a recent episode of The O.C., a Fox
network show, gave it a pro-bono plug.

"Maybe he's on OxyContin," said one character. "OxyContin is gnarly."

Gnarly in more ways than one as prescription drug abuse is ravaging the
United States. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, four
million Americans are using such drugs for "non-medical" reasons.

There has not been a Canadian celebrity endorsement of OxyContin but the
drug is making its presence known north of the border.

The emergence of oxy on the east coast is worrying because it follows the
demographic and geographic pattern of abuse traced throughout the United
States.

The painkiller earned its hillbilly heroin label in the United States
through its use in rural areas marked by high unemployment and a lack of
economic opportunity.

Oxy invariably flourishes in towns that are remote, far from the network
through which heroin and cocaine usually travel.