CANCER DRUG SPAWNS ABUSE

Prescription Medicine Being Used Like Heroin Blamed For 59 Deaths In
Kentucky

Pikeville, Ky. --- The robber asked for only one thing when he walked into
a pharmacy with a mask on and an automatic rifle in his hands: OxyContin.

The prescription drug is meant to be a painkiller for cancer patients but
it is being abused throughout the East as users go to great lengths to feed
their addictions, authorities say. About 200 people in Kentucky were
arrested on OxyContin charges this week in what police say was the largest
drug raid in state history.

''They'll kick a bag of cocaine out of the way to get to 'Oxy,''' Detective
Roger Hall of the Harlan County sheriff's department in Kentucky said this
week.

Over the past two years, the drug has become popular in parts of Ohio,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Maine, according to the U.S.
Department of Justice's National Drug Intelligence Center.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Famularo, a leader of the Kentucky bust, said he
studied autopsy reports and determined that the drug has caused 59 deaths
in Kentucky.

The drug's maker, Purdue Pharma in Stamford, Conn., disputes Famularo's
figures. ''Even one death from abuse is a tragedy. My concern is that
numbers sometimes take on a life of their own in a situation like this,''
said Dr. J. David Haddox, senior medical director for health policy at
Purdue Pharma. ''I've not seen any data that those numbers are anywhere
close to accurate.''

Famularo said people have been crushing the pills into powder and snorting
it, or injecting it to get a euphoric high similar to that of heroin. It
sells on the streets for up to $100 a pill.

In Tuesday's drug roundup, police charged a nurse with stealing OxyContin
from her hospital, said Capt. Danny Webb of the Kentucky State Police in
Hazard. Webb said another suspect worked in a doctor's office and allegedly
called in prescriptions for OxyContin to pharmacies. Her husband would then
pick up the pills, police said.

In Ohio, two doctors were arrested recently in connection with OxyContin
prescriptions. In Maine last year, 11 people were accused of obtaining
OxyContin by forging prescriptions.

The drug has increased crime in eastern Kentucky, said Hazard Police Chief
Rod Maggard. He estimated 90 percent of the thefts and burglaries in Hazard
are for money to buy pills.

In a detox center in Ashland, about 75 percent of the patients treated over
the past 18 months have used OxyContin, said Bill Stewart, a supervisor for
the regional mental health agency.

OxyContin's withdrawal symptoms, Stewart said, involve nausea, diarrhea and
severe stomach cramps. Police believe people in the region are more likely
to abuse prescription medications because they are more readily available
than illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin and carry less of a social stigma.

The recent bust wasn't Kentucky 's first encounter with the drug. In May,
10 people were charged with running a drug operation in a rural home police
say was nearly as busy as a local fast-food restaurant's drive-through
window. OxyContin was among the drugs they allegedly offered for sale.

Police saw more than 59,000 vehicles pull up to the driveway of the rural
home during a five-month period last year. Investigators say as many as 600
were seen in the driveway in one day.