STUDENT'S DEATH PUTS OXYCONTIN ABUSE IN SPOTLIGHT

Former Tiburon Resident Found Dead In San Diego Dorm

Pamela Ashkenazy came home Jan. 14 to find a message on her machine - call
858-694-2895.

It was the medical examiner's office in San Diego. They were calling with
condolences about her 20-year-old son, Daniel, a junior at the University
of California at San Diego.

"I just wanted to get to his dad and have his dad tell me it was a
mistake," said Ashkenazy, a San Rafael resident. "I just couldn't believe it."

But now that the surreal has become real, Ashkenazy wants to sound a
warning about what she believes helped kill her son - a plague of youthful
experimentation with alcohol and OxyContin, a prescription painkiller
reported to have a growing recreational following.

"It's very readily available," she said. "It's an epidemic. They're all using."

Daniel Ashkenazy, a 2002 Redwood High School graduate raised in Tiburon,
was found dead in the off-campus home in San Diego that he shared with
three roommates.

Ashkenazy had been up until about 4 a.m. that day and was planning to fly
to Marin for a visit later that weekend. He had been drinking, but friends
said they did not see him use drugs that night.

Around noon, roommate Michael Shapiro went to Ashkenazy's bed and tried to
wake him, but he did not respond.

"He was purple," said Shapiro, 21, an Irvine native.

The housemates called 911, but paramedics were unable to revive him.
Ashkenazy became case number 05-00088 at the San Diego County Medical
Examiner's Office.

Whether OxyContin played a role in his death will be determined by
toxicology tests, which could take six to 12 weeks to complete. But friends
told investigators that Ashkenazy was known to take the narcotic.

"In the ante mortem (pre-death) events, it was noted that he might use or
abuse OxyContin, but nothing was found at the scene," said coroner's
investigator Jerry Simmons, citing a preliminary report.

Simmons added that hydrocodone, a common prescription painkiller, was among
Ashkenazy's belongings, and that he had a prescription for it.

Sean Breuner, a childhood friend of Ashkenazy's who also attends UCSD, said
OxyContin is a popular recreational drug in Marin circles and that
Ashkenazy had mentioned using it himself.

Breuner said that although he has never used the drug, he knows it is easy
to get.

"It had been around in Marin a lot, it had been around in San Francisco a
lot," said Breuner, 20, a Redwood High grad from Kentfield. "I've seen it.
I was home all summer and I've seen it around. People talk about it."

Local drug treatment officials say OxyContin abuse is not as common as
heroin or methamphetamine abuse, but it appears to be on the rise.

"We deal with OxyContin addiction, and it's something that's clearly a
topic in our field," said Ann Harrison, executive director of Marin
Services for Women, a drug recovery program. "OxyContin is similar to any
opiate or opiate derivative. The effects are similar to heroin, opium,
morphine, a whole variety of opiate derivatives.

"The thing about OxyContin and the reason it's become so prevalent - not
only on the coasts but in the middle of the country - is that it's a very
strong drug. It's legal and it's legally transported. And it carries less
of a stigma than heroin. It's very highly addicting, and it happens quickly."

D.J. Pierce, head of the Marin County Division of Alcohol, Drug and Tobacco
Programs, said she has no statistics on OxyContin abuse itself but added
that anecdotal evidence suggests the abuse has increased in the last
several years.

"It's a time-release thing, so what's happening is that people usually
crush it up and inject it - and that's the danger. They may use too much,
or they use more than is prescribed as a pill form, to get the intense
high," Pierce said. "When you do that, the time-release structure is
bypassed. They get a rush that's similar to heroin."

OxyContin has been the subject of numerous reports about its habit-forming
powers, and its acknowledged addicts include talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.
Some news reports have put the number of OxyContin-related deaths in the
hundreds.

The drug's use among the young also has raised alarms. Last month, a report
released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of
Michigan showed that OxyContin had been used by 5 percent of 12th-graders,
3.5 percent of 10th-graders and 1.7 percent of eighth-graders in 2004.
Researchers surveyed nearly 50,000 students at 406 public and private schools.

Jim Heins, a spokesman for Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut-based
manufacturer of OxyContin, said the company has taken numerous measures to
combat abuse of the drug, including public education and tighter shipment
tracking.

The company also is working on a "blocking agent" that will neutralize the
powerful narcotic when an abuser tries to crush the pill for injection.

"There's a number of things we try to do, but if people are bent on abusing
something, there's only so much we can do," Heins said. "It's been a
growing problem in rural areas, and we've heard about it in college
communities.

"Obviously, drug abuse on college campuses is nothing new. If they add
alcohol on top of it, they don't know how much their bodies can take."

Dr. Peter Eisenberg, a cancer specialist in Greenbrae, said OxyContin, if
used properly, is no more addictive than any other prescribed narcotic.

"What's ironic is that because people have read so much about the dangers
of narcotics, we as oncologists spend a lot of time trying to disabuse
people of that notion when they really need it," Eisenberg said. "People
who have pain typically don't get addicted to the pain medication we use."

Ashkenazy's death sent shock waves through both Marin and the UCSD
community, where Ashkenazy was a political science major with a minor in
history.

An honors student at Redwood, he was planning to become a lawyer, and
shortly before his death had won a prized internship at a San Diego law firm.

Ashkenazy's death was announced by administrators at Sixth College, his
school at UCSD, and reported in the campus newspaper, The Guardian.

The newspaper reported that Ashkenazy, who had been a member of the Delta
Sigma Phi fraternity, had been attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous
when he died.

But Breuner said Ashkenazy appeared to have no difficulty balancing his
academic life with his social life.

"Dan was a charismatic, easygoing, fun guy," Breuner said. "He was one of
the funnest guys I've ever known. He'd always bring a positive vibe into a
room, no matter whether it was a good day or a bad day. His humor was,
instead of telling jokes, just subtly making you laugh with the things he did."

Services were held last week at Mount Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael, and
many of Ashkenazy's friends from San Diego were in attendance.

Ashkenazy is survived by his mother; his father, Dan Ashkenazy of Tiburon;
his sisters, Rebecca and Yamit; a brother, Elliot; his grandparents Uri and
Yael Ashkenazy of Israel; and numerous aunts, uncles and extended relatives.

Pamela Ashkenazy said she hopes her son's death will at least call
attention to the risks of his substance abuse, and perhaps save the life of
someone else.

"He was just an incredible, incredible human being, and I have to believe
that his purpose was larger than we can imagine right now," she said.