PRESCRIPTIONS FOR CHANGE

Oxycodone Has Never Been More Available Than It Is Right Now

There's a new drug of choice for Northern Ontario teenagers, one that
should send shivers down the spines of every parent. Oxycodone, often
sold over the counter as OxyContin, percocet or percodan, is a
semi-synthetic opiod prescribed for pain relief. It is highly
addictive and very destructive, much like heroin -- but it's much
cheaper. It's also rampant in Greater Sudbury, an OxyContin/Narcotic
Abuse Task force reported on Monday.

The principal reason oxycodone is cheap is because it's readily
available in pharmacies. All you need is a prescription and drug
pushers and addicts have found a number of creative ways to obtain
them. Many make the rounds of doctors and medical clinics with the
same symptoms and get several copies of the same prescription.

Others, the report says, have begun to intimidate and harass doctors
into writing prescriptions, and into writing them for more than the
standard month's worth of dosages. As a result, oxycodone has never
been more available than it is right now.

In fact, local pharmacists report prescriptions of oxycodone products
now exceeds the prescription of Tylenol 3 medication as painkillers
by a factor of three to one. And once prescribed, the drug is as good
as in the hands of someone -- perhaps teenagers -- addicted to it.

So what to do about it? The task force will release a series of
recommendations in the future. In the meantime, policy makers need
not wait. Many of the problems the task force highlighted have been
well-documented for years.

In fact, many of the challenges in dealing with prescription drug
addictions were identified by the Coroner's inquest into the death of
Kimberly Rogers almost four years ago. Rogers died of an overdose of
prescribed painkillers. Several months worth of illegally-obtained
prescriptions were found in her apartment.

Among the 14 recommendations made by the inquest jury, five were
simple but common sense changes to the way pharmaceuticals are
dispensed in Ontario designed to prevent abuses.

In particular, the jury recommended the province set up an Internet
database that would permit all pharmacies to access a patient's drug
dispensing records from other pharmacies, as well as to potentially
alert pharmacies of a patient's past attempts to forge prescriptions.
Such a system could be modelled on British Columbia's PharmaNet
system that uses a patient's government issued health card to store
and track relevant information.

In addition, pharmacists should be required to notify the prescribing
physician of any attempts by the patient to alter or falsify a
prescription. A customer who does would immediately be flagged for
intervention, either by police or addictions counsellors, as the case warrants.

In fact, many of the recommendations had little to do with Rogers'
case history, but jurors were so struck by how simple and common it
is to illegally obtain prescription drugs that it recommended these
measures anyway.

Despite this, the provincial government has not acted on any of the
jury's recommendations regarding dispensing prescription drugs. In
the meantime, Ontario teenagers are dying of oxycodone abuse. Parents
have good reason to worry.