Index -- Special On Opiate Use (Eagle-Tribune) --

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n042/a06.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

COMMUNITIES WARNED OF TEEN DRUG PROBLEM

NORTH ANDOVER -- Kathleen Lawrence was smart, came from a two-parent,
middle-class family, had a passion for running to stay fit and was so
health conscious that she refused to eat meat. To all outward appearances,
she had the perfect life.

But the attractive blonde also became a drug addict while in high school,
and the demon ended up taking her life at age 21, turning her into yet
another tragic story that knows no social or economic boundaries. "She came
from a good family," said her father, Timothy Lawrence. "She had a lot of
opportunities. She fought it as if it was a disease -- like she had cancer.
And the disease just beat her."

It happened in November 2003, he said, when she overdosed on heroin while
desperately trying to shake an addiction that started when she was
introduced by peers to the opiate high of OxyContin, a prescription pain
pill, at age 16. Lawrence, a veteran Lynn firefighter, spoke about his
family nightmare at a Merrimack College drug-awareness forum organized by
District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett. Scores of local police officers,
educators, nurses, doctors and community leaders attended the session.

It was difficult, Lawrence said, to talk so frankly about how his daughter
got hooked and her battle with drugs, but he felt obligated to do so in the
hope that bringing the problem out into the open might prevent other young
people from going down her path.

"There is nothing more dreadful than losing a child," he said. "But let's
be honest. Drug abuse is here, in suburbia, in the best of houses, the best
of families." Blodgett applauded Lawrence for telling the story of his
daughter so that families become aware of what he called a devastating
opiate-drug crisis among young people in cities and towns North of Boston.
He said abuse of Oxycontin and the use of heroin affect affluent
communities like Andover and Marblehead the same as urban cities like Lynn
and Lawrence.

North Shore communities have been particularly hit hard. Two days ago, the
superintendent of schools in Salem, Mass., Herbert Levine, said he plans to
form a task force to investigate how that school district can carry out
random drug testing of students as a preventative measure. Levine said
that his son, Joel, 20, is currently recovering from an addiction to
OxyContin, and that parents and schools need to take extraordinary
measures to combat the problem.

The National Federation of High School Associations said that about 13
percent of high schools across the country have a drug-testing policy. Of
those that test, the group said, the majority target student-athletes, but
20 percent test all students. Levine said he believes the testing should
start in the middle schools.

The pharmaceutical company that makes OxyContin, Purdue Pharma of Stamford,
Conn., told the forum the effort to curtail drug abuse requires the efforts
of everyone in the community -- from parents, law enforcement and doctors
to kids themselves.

"We have an obligation as business leaders, citizens and parents to come to
the table, roll up our sleeves and do what we can to save our kids," said
Clay Yeager, a Purdue executive who works with communities interested in
combating drug-abuse problems.

Blodgett and other authorities said that OxyContin, a prescription pill
designed for chronic pain, has become the abused drug of choice for
young people, who crumble and sniff it to get an opiate high.

But because OxyContin is so expensive ($80 per pill) they turn to cheaper
heroin ($4 per bag) and soon become hopelessly hooked, the forum was told.
The result is ruined young lives and, in many instances, family tragedy.
Purdue Pharma spokesman C.R. "Robin" Hogen said doctors wrote 61/2 million
OxyContin prescriptions last year for legal purposes, but abuse results
when people steal the drug from family medicine cabinets or buy it on the
street from illicit drug dealers.

Hogen said Purdue Pharma first became aware of the abuse of OxyContin in
the Bangor, Maine, area in April 2000. He described misuse of the drug as a
"phenomenon of pop culture ... something we take very seriously." Purdue
Pharma, Hogen said, is trying to develop a new drug that loses its
painkilling properties if addicts crush and snort it. But that drug, dubbed
a "smart pill," which works properly if swallowed and sickens an addict
that snorts it, will take years to develop, said Hogen. "Are we close? It's
a race, but we can't see the finish line," he said. He added that even a
gel form of OxyContin wouldn't deter abuse, since addicts could liquefy the
drug and then drink or inject it, he said. The company also works with
communities to develop prevention programs like "Painfully Obvious," a
campaign aimed at seventh- and eighth-graders. In frank language and
explicit descriptions, the program warns of the dangers of
prescription-drug abuse.

In his role as community partnership director, Yeager works with cities and
towns to implement the "Community That Cares" program, which helps identify
why local kids become involved with drugs. The city of Lynn has embarked
on the project, bolstered by a $25,000 grant last fall from Purdue Pharma.
But when asked why they thought more kids were abusing OxyContin, neither
Hogen nor Yeager had a clear-cut answer. Many factors are beyond the
company's control, including peer pressure, despair and hopelessness among
teens, as well as mixed messages from the media, Yeager said. "Kids have
not changed, but the influences have," he said. Timothy Lawrence gave
witness to that. He said over the years, he continually felt blessed. While
he worked as a Lynn firefighter, his wife, Joan, stayed home to raise
their four children. But when Kathleen was about 16, attending
Lynn Classical High School, she started partying on weekends, drinking
alcohol and smoking pot.

Then she became addicted to OxyContin. "It was a very slippery slope," he said.

When they realized their daughter was an addict, Lawrence said, he and his
wife did everything possible to help her. They researched addiction, called
doctors, sent Kathleen to treatment programs. Financially and emotionally,
they exhausted themselves.

But while Kathleen was in a treatment program for OxyContin on Cape Cod,
another patient introduced her to heroin. She desperately wanted to get
clean and commit her life to helping others with drug problems. Lawrence
knows he's not alone. He said he's friendly with four other couples who
lost children to heroin overdoses. One couple moved from Lynn to New
Hampshire years ago to get away from the city, the crime and the drugs.
Yet, he said, heroin found its way there and killed their child, too.
"Heroin doesn't discriminate," said Lawrence. "It gets to the best of
families."