US MA: OXYCONTIN BAN NOT THE ANSWER

As the cliche should go, you don't throw the OxyContin out with the bath
water. Why punish law-abiding citizens by banning this drug because addicts
crave the high?

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch of Boston is pushing for an OxyContin ban. He's
taking his campaign to the op-ed pages of newspapers and to the floor of
Congress.

It's a dangerous precedent to set.

Someone in my life needed OxyContin to survive a surgery. They are back on
their feet and weaned off the drug, but for a few treacherous months,
OxyContin was a savior. They are older and needed the help.

I won't divulge any details because that's what this drug has wrought.
OxyContin's soothing powers both save those in pain and sentence others to
the cycle of addiction. Addicts will go to any ends to gobble down these pills.

Yesterday we told the story of Mary, a suburban mother who finally agreed
to take OxyContin to overcome a disease called interstitial cystitis, which
had infected her bladder. We won't give away her last name or hometown
either in fear that some heartless druggie will rob her blind.

But, banning the drug will convict her as well. Her pain may return and her
life will once again become a place none of us would want to dwell.

"I could not get out of bed. All I could do was lie in bed and cry and cry
and cry," Mary told us of her life before OxyContin.

I separated my shoulder skiing and was prescribed codeine with Tylenol. For
weeks it helped me get a little sleep, rolling over would still jolt me
awake, but at least it helped for a few hours. Once I healed, I took that
bottle of pills and flushed them right down the toilet.

We need more education, better safety precautions, tougher sentencing, but
not a ban. If Lynch succeeds in banishing the drug, what comes next?

What about fast food? Our society is suffering under the weight of our own
bodies (or at least that's what the latest reports state.) That new
double-omelet can't be helping.

What about SUVs? Those gas-guzzlers are making us even more reliant on
foreign oil. (Legislators will have to repossess mine, I'm guilty of owning
a mid-sized SUV, but I do wish I didn't.)

Lynch wrote last week: "The premise of my legislation is that the drug is
so inherently addictive that it is unsafe for the general population to
whom it is being marketed and prescribed.

"As originally approved, OxyContin was supposed to be for end-stage cancer
patients and others with severe and escalating pain -- those people for
whom the drug's addictive propensity was balanced by the extreme
circumstances of the patient. Because of its overpowering addiction rate,
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency described OxyContin as a painkiller of
last resort.

"However, as the Government Accountability Office has reported, Purdue
Pharma has aggressively expanded the market for OxyContin to include
patients who suffer from mild to moderate and intermittent pain related to
broken bones, dental discomfort and lower back pain. In stunning testimony,
a former district manager for Purdue Pharma in West Virginia disclosed that
the company instructed sales reps to tell doctors it is 'virtually'
non-addicting."

Lynch does add that the drug maker should help address the criminal element
linked to OxyContin abuse which is off the charts, he says. He raises an
excellent point. Maybe the threat of a ban may trigger a re-examination of
how the drug works. (Addicts crush it up for an instant high.) There must
be some answer other than a total ban. If that's his gambit calling for the
ban, then I applaud the move.

An OxyContin Commission will convene today at Framingham State College to
address this scourge. Those at the forum must examine every solution, but
keep in mind the innocent few who have turned to the drug, as they should,
to make it through the day. Banned in Boston and beyond is not what the
doctor orders.