NURSE MIDWIFE TO TELL SENATORS THE HUMAN TOLL OF OXYCONTIN ABUSE

WASHINGTON - Nancy Green, a nurse midwife in Calais, will tell a Senate
panel today how abuse of the prescription pain reliever OxyContin has
devastated rural Maine. According to Green:

Ten of the 40 births she attended last year involved mothers who abused
opiates like OxyContin, and babies suffered narcotic withdrawal.

One of the clients Green counsels for drug abuse was desperate enough that
she asked her for money to feed her habit. The client then turned to
another health-care professional and asked again.

One mother of four got a prescription for legitimate pain relief. But she
became addicted and lost her home and her children before going to prison
for two years for supplying a habit that costs up to $500 per day.

"Believe me when I tell you that since the legal introduction and illegal
diversion of OxyContin, a dark cloud hangs over Down East Maine and I don't
see it clearing for a long, long time," said Green, who co-founded the
group Neighbors Against Drug Abuse.

She will tell her story to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee as part of the search for ways to fight drug abuse.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the committee, said she hopes to
strike a balance between discouraging abuse and keeping the supply open to
patients who need it.

In particular, she expressed concerns about "disturbing evidence" that
manufacturer Purdue Pharma LP marketed the drug to family physicians
without explaining the risks, which are familiar to pain specialists and
oncologists who deal with such drugs routinely.

"Access to it is far easier than to drugs that we consider serious targets
of abuse, such as heroin," Collins said.

Purdue Pharma has distributed 500,000 educational brochures to doctors and
50,000 to pharmacists, a spokesman said. Any effort to limit distribution
to certain doctors might also limit access to patients in rural areas, the
spokesman said.

"In my view, no other company has done so much so quickly to respond to
abuse as we have," said Tim Bannon, a Purdue spokesman.

Nobody disputes that the drug - an opiate like heroin - is effective. The
12-hour time-release formula made the drug attractive to doctors and
legitimate patients.

But if the pills are ground up, the effect is immediate. Addicts snort the
powder or mix it with water to inject it like heroin.

Addicts have turned to falsifying prescriptions, crossing into Canada or
robbing pharmacies, demanding the drug by name. The pills sold in 10
milligram to 80 milligram doses are worth as much as $1 per milligram on
the black market.

One of the country's hardest hit areas for abuse is Maine's Washington
County, a rural area the size of Rhode Island with only 35,000 residents.
High unemployment and poverty, coupled with easy border crossings to
Canada, made the county one of the first places in the country where
illegal abuse surfaced.

The number of Mainers admitted to drug treatment for opiates including
OxyContin rose from 232 in 1995 to 1,299 last year, according to the
Substance Abuse Services Commission and Maine Office of Substance Abuse.

Washington County saw the steepest rise, from nine cases to 144. But
Cumberland County also rose sharply, from 103 to 386.

At the same time, arrests for synthetic narcotics climbed from 115 in 1995
to 239 in 2000, the last year for which statistics were available.
Washington County's cases again jumped the most, from seven to 58. The
number of cases in Cumberland County rose from 16 to 50.

The state commission, Purdue and Green urged more treatment and education
programs for addicts as well as increased law enforcement to deter abuse
and prescription tracking to detect abuse.

Bannon, the company spokesman, said the problem with addicts chopping up
the pills wasn't obvious at first. The company has spent $100 million
developing new forms of abuse-resistant pain relievers, he said.

"If you make a legitimate product, there will be people who find a way to
misuse it," Bannon said. "It's a constant chess game."