PAIN RELIEVERS EMERGING AS FATAL DRUGS OF CHOICE

Move over alcohol, cocaine and marijuana: A new drug has surfaced on
Florida's streets and is emerging as a top killer among abusers.

Deaths caused by lethal amounts of oxycodone and hydrocodone - two
synthetic pain relievers that mimic the effects of morphine and heroin -
rose 43 percent in the first six months of 2001 - beating out every other
drug commonly found in overdosed bodies.

The figures, released this week from Florida Medical Examiners in a midyear
report to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, surprised drug
officials who've been busy focusing on prevention strategies for
traditional drugs of abuse.

"We really invested a lot of effort to get the heroin death rate under
control and we literally stopped that," said James McDonough, director of
the Florida Office of Drug Control.

"We were saying, 'Hooray for us,' only to discover that addicts were
finding a synthetic substitute."

Besides causing 240 deaths through June 2001, the drugs oxycodone (also
known as OxyContin) and hydrocodone (commonly known as Vicodin), were
responsible for an additional 209 deaths where the drugs were present with
other substances.

In Lee County the first half of this year, 13 people died directly from the
drugs, or with the drugs present in their systems. Last year, 17 people died.

"We're definitely seeing an increase of these drugs," District 21 Medical
Examiner Rebecca Hamilton said. "It's not just here; it's pretty much
happening nationwide."

Deaths associated with marijuana and so-called "party drugs" such as
ecstasy and GHB, remained about the same as last year.

Drug deaths from cocaine, alcohol and tranquilizers slightly decreased.

The only drugs that showed a marked rise in usage - and death - were
oxycodones and hyrdocodones - long-acting and powerful prescription
medications created to treat chronic pain, such as with cancer patients.

Oxycodone and hydrocodone create a false sense of well-being, but a
time-released element in each drug makes the high last a long time.

They sell for about $1 per milligram on the street.

The scarier news is that people can become addicted to them within three
tries, McDonough said.

"This is big news - addicts have discovered a good way to get a heroin high
that's even better than heroin, in their view," he said. "It's a more
euphoric high and it lasts longer - but it kills them."

Three red flags have alerted officials to the growing problem with these
drugs: the growing number of overdoses, the high-addiction factor and the
startling number of deaths.

The problem is spurring legislation and a grand scheme for professional and
public awareness.

"Florida is not immune to this problem and this report should draw
attention to those drugs because they were not a traditional problem here,"
FDLE spokesman Al Dennis said. "This means we need to track this and see
what we can do to turn these numbers around."

Three bills coming before the state Legislature in January may help curb
this and other drug-abuse problems.

The first set of bills deals with creating a tamper-proof prescription
script that includes serialized pads on forgery-proof paper.

That same bill also would address the electronic data processing system in
which prescriptions are filled.

That means the system will flag unusual transactions, such as the person
who fills a prescription at one pharmacy and tries to fill it an hour later
at a second pharmacy.

If passed, that bill also would cut down on doctor fraud by physicians who
dispense prescriptions for profit.

A second bill addresses patients' privacy rights in connection with the
first bill. If the proposed data processing system is monitored by, for
example, the Attorney General's Office, this bill would protect noncriminal
medical information from public records laws.

A third bill set for a January review deals with injecting the justice
system with more enforcement vigor, a way to more efficiently review
criminally accused doctors or pharmaceutical companies and move them
through the system. As it is now, criminally accused doctors still can
practice while under review.

"We're going to get it under control real quick," McDonough said. "We're
about to really stop this abuse. The alarm bells are going off."