POLICE WORK, OC BAN MAY CURB PROBLEM

Wakefield police and lawmakers are fighting a new enemy in the war on
drugs: OxyContin.

OxyContin hit the market in 1996 as a painkiller prescribed to people
suffering from extreme pain.

The pills can be abused by removing the time release coating. Abusers chew
the pill or crush it up and snort it, getting a "high" that isn't present
when the drug is used as directed.

The drug, known as OCs or Oxys on the street, was seized during numerous
drug busts in Wakefield over the last few years. Thieves ransacked
Walgreen's last week and stole prescription narcotics including OxyContin
and the painkillers Percocet and morphine.

The opiate tragically took the lives of young people in Melrose in 2002
and 2003. Wakefield Police Chief Rick Smith worries it's a "numbers game"
until someone in Wakefield suffers the same fate as the Melrose youths.
Wakefield police have seen an increase in OxyContin-related drug activity
in the past few years, he said.

"The trouble is that young people today get involved in OxyContin because
they like the high, they've heard of the high, and they can get their
hands on it now because there's a lot of it on the street," Smith said.
"They don't understand it's powerfully, powerfully addictive. A couple
tablets and you can be addicted."

The drug's addictive quality and its prevalence among young people in
Essex and Middlesex counties are some of the reasons Smith recently
participated in a program with Purdue Pharma, the company that produces
OxyContin. Purdue Pharma held a seminar in Boston in April to train drug
unit commanders on OxyContin abuse awareness. Smith asked the
representative to come to Wakefield for a regional training session in May.

The training was designed to familiarize and re-familiarize officers - at
no cost to the town - with pharmaceuticals abused on the street, and
medical effects and results caused by pharmaceuticals.

Pardue Pharma also discussed "diversion," the ways legal drugs make their
way onto the black market. One of the ways is larceny from someone who has
a prescription.

Another way is "phony scripts," Smith said - when a physician writes a
prescription for someone who doesn't need pain treatment, or when someone
steals a prescription from a doctor's office. Earlier this year a
Wakefield doctor with a practice in Melrose was charged with swapping
OxyContin prescriptions for drugs like Ecstasy.

A local epidemic? Wakefield's state Rep. Mike Festa, D-Melrose, said he
has dealt with OxyContin addicts in his job as a defense attorney. Most of
them are young, and some are from Melrose and Wakefield, he said.

Festa said his young clients are usually students without a prior criminal
record. They are young people, often formerly good students or athletes,
who were unable to beat their addiction even after week-long or month-long
detoxification programs.

"Never in all my years have I seen anything like the incredible
dangerousness of this drug," Festa said. "We are seeing a lot of people
coming down here who can't do anything in 30 days to change this
addiction." OxyContin abuse is a national concern; the Partnership for a
Drug Free America reports that one in 10 teenagers - about 2.3 million -
abuse OxyContin. Statistics on abuse in Massachusetts aren't available,
but health experts say the state has the highest numbers of abuse.

State Sen. Richard R. Tisei, R-Wakefield, has heard testimony about the
drug from many legal and medical experts.

"New England has the worst problem in the country. Of all the states in
New England, Massachusetts is number one. We probably have the biggest
problem in the U.S. at this point," said Tisei, paraphrasing what he and
other lawmakers were told by the Department of Publuc Health. Tisei
said communities like Wakefield aren't exempt from the problem. "It
doesn't matter whether you're in urban area or a tony suburb, this is a
problem that's pretty much widespread," Tisei said. Tisei, Festa and
Smith each said one of the dangers of OxyContin is its affiliation with
heroin, which addicts say delivers a similar "high" at a lower price.
OxyContin pills usually come in 80-mg form, and people with severe
dependencies need two or three a day to support their addiction. The cost
is about $80 per pill, making it a costly habit.

Smith said a bag of heroin, in comparison, costs $3 to $5 per bag. Since
heroin can be snorted - not just injected with a needle - the transition
is easy for some users.

After hearing so many clients recall their move from OC to heroin, Festa
said he is convinced the two are linked.

"At $80 a pill, (abusers) rapidly spiral downward into addiction to heroin
- - $4 or $5 is all they can afford to feed that addiction," Festa said. An
OxyContin ban?

The war on OxyContin has reached the state and national level. Lawmakers
are weighing bills at both levels that would ban production of the pills.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Boston Democrat, put forward a congressional
bill last month that would ban the drug from the commercial market. A
similar bill is being weighed by state lawmakers. Tisei and Festa said
they don't support an outright ban, because the drug works wonders for
people - including cancer patients - who suffer from chronic pain. "The
reason why is that when it's properly prescribed, it has an incredibly
important value in pain management," said Festa.

Festa belives lawmakers should pressure Purdue Pharma to make an
OxyContion pill with the time-release inside, rather than a removable
coating. That would emilinate the high that abusers seek and make the drug
less attractive for recreational use, he said. Chief Smith also favors
reformulating the drug. If Purdue Pharma is unable or unwilling to change
the drug's design, Festa said, a ban may be a consideration.

Tisei, who serves on the Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance
Abuse, said an effective tool against drug abuse is requiring hospitals
and doctors to report opiate overdoses. This requirement is up for debate
in the Senate, and is supported by Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.

Some overdoses, like two non-fatal cases in Melrose last month, become
public. Tisei suspects many more go unreported, making existing overdose
statistics "just a guess."

The ongoing public hearings before the joint committee have convinced
Tisei that health insurance companies need to provide more coverage for
substance abuse treatment, and for longer periods of time.

"We need to make sure anyone who wants to be treated, that a treatment
program available for them," he said.

He also hopes to put more money into prevention forums at public schools.
The suggestions developed by the task force are expected to be unveiled as
a comprehensive plan this fall.

In the meantime, law enforcement agencies continue their battle against
OxyContin abuse. Wakefield's Middlesex County District Attorney Martha
Coakley launched a prevention campaign last spring, Project Stop OxyContin
Abuse. The first step was implementing a toll-free hotline,
1-866-OXY-TIPS, which allows callers to give tips about illegal
distribution of the drug. Coakley called a regional conference on the
problem with educators, police and medical professionals in May.

In September Coakley's office unveiled "Jammed Up - A Prescription for
Disaster," a film about the dangers of the drug. The name comes from the
slang term for getting high on OxyContin, "jammed." The 17-minute film
includes interviews with several former teen addicts.

On the North Shore, Essex County District Attorney has launched a similar
campaign. Smith said police are making headway by pooling resources with
other agencies. Wakefield Police teams with surrounding communities to
form the South Middlesex Regional Task Force, which has made several
high-profile OxyContin and heroin seizures in the last year.

"Our intelligence base is good. The officers are working hard," Smith
said. "Our goal is to get this stuff off the street. Our goal is to
save lives."