'HILLBILLY HEROIN' KILLER

A second death in Brandon has been linked to the so-called "hillbilly
heroin" - illegal use of the potent prescription painkiller OxyContin
- - prompting warnings from police and the medical community.

"We're concerned that there seems to be a rise in the use of this as a
street drug," said Sgt. Shane Corley of the Brandon Police Service.
"We want to make people aware that this is a dangerous drug."

Corley was tight-lipped about the most recent death, saying only that
police suspect OxyContin was involved in the death of a young Brandon
woman in mid-August.

Toxicology results confirming their suspicions haven't come back yet
and an investigation continues, though police don't suspect foul play
in the death.

However, police have just received toxicology results on a 36-year-old
woman whose sudden death July 7 in a 12th Street apartment prompted
police to lay a charge of criminal negligence causing death against
31-year-old Sean Devine.

"The report showed the presence of alcohol and a high level of
oxycodone (generic name for OxyContin)," Corley said. "We're still
waiting on the autopsy report to stipulate the cause of death."

OxyContin, a synthetic opiate, is a powerful and highly addictive
painkiller that is prescribed to treat moderate to severe pain - often
in sufferers of cancer or Crohn's disease.

Prescriptions for the drug have skyrocketed across Manitoba in the
last few years. While 4,495 prescriptions for OxyContin were dispensed
at community pharmacies in 2001, the number of prescriptions jumped to
11,937 in 2003, Manitoba Health reports.

Police and physicians in Brandon say there's no question the drug is
increasingly being used not as a painkiller but as a means to get high
and even to make money.

"It's likely that a significant amount of it gets diverted into
illegal or suspect usage," Brandon physician Dr. Derry Decter said.

"And it's dangerous because both patients and doctors tend to
underestimate how potent and dangerous and addictive it is."

Most people who abuse the drug do so by crushing the pills, diluting
them in water and injecting them into their bodies with a syringe.

What is supposed to be a time-released medication in tablet form hits
the addict's body with full potency, giving a heroin-like high and
increasing the risk of an overdose.

While a 40-milligram tablet costs less than $3 at a pharmacy, Corley
said the drug is now selling on the street for $40 to $60 a pill.
Decter said the drug should be taken off Manitoba's drug formulary and
banned outright.

"There's other, safer alternatives (for treating chronic pain)," he
said.

In Newfoundland, where seven deaths and a string of crimes have been
blamed on the OxyContin since 2001, the provincial government set up a
task force last year to look for ways to combat widespread abuse of
the drug.

In August, the task force came out with more than 50 recommendations
on how to crack down on the non-medical use of the drug. Those
recommendations included giving people's medical information to police
to stop people from getting the drug through double-doctoring or other
illegal means.

But in Manitoba, where OxyContin has been a factor at least 17 deaths
since 2002, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the
government hasn't even placed the drug under review.

A Manitoba Health official said the province already has procedures to
guard against double-doctoring - which occurs when a person gets a
prescription filled, then within a 30-day period, gets the same drug
from another doctor without disclosing information about what
medications are already being taken.

"When pharmacies fill prescriptions (for OxyContin), we automatically
provide them with that person's records for the last three months,"
said Jack Rosentreter, executive director of provincial drug programs
for Manitoba Health.

Rosentreter said prescriptions for the drug are only valid for three
days and that copies of the prescription are kept by the patient's
doctor, the dispensing pharmacy and the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

He said the Manitoba Drug Standards and Therapeutics Committee will
wait for complaints about OxyContin to come in before it will discuss
changing the availability of the drug.

"If something like that came to me it would go to the committee and we
would review it," he said.

Rosentreter added the number of prescriptions for OxyContin may be
increasing due to the province's 20-month-old palliative care program,
which provides free drugs to people who want to spend their final days
at home rather than in the hospital.

But Decter said the government shouldn't wait for complaints to come
in. "We have a chance in Manitoba to avoid the problems they're having
in the Maritimes," he said.

Devine, the man charged in connection with the 36-year-old woman's
July 7 death, remains out on bail. He will be back in court on Oct.
21.