COMMUNITY HEALTH INITIATIVE RECEIVES ANTI-ABUSE GRANTS

Blount County's Community Health Initiative has been awarded a $25,000
Community Partnerships grant by Purdue Pharma L.P., with an additional
$14,000 grant from the Blount Memorial Foundation.

The Purdue Pharma grant is part of the organization's effort to reduce
prescription drug abuse and other problem behaviors among young people
through the Communities That Care prevention planning process. Only 10
such grants were awarded nationally.

The announcement was made Wednesday in a press conference at the
Airport Hilton Hotel. Michele Ridge, former first lady of Pennsylvania
and now national spokeswoman for Communities That Care, and Clay
Yeager, director of community partnerships for Purdue Pharma,
described the program to community leaders in attendance.

``Implementing Communities That Care can literally change the future
for a community's youngest and often most vulnerable citizens,'' Ridge
said.

CTC is a science-based prevention process designed to help communities
support the healthy development of youth by reducing risk factors and
strengthening protective factors. Officials say the approach reduces
multiple problem behaviors in youth, including substance abuse, teen
pregnancy, delinquency, school drop out and violence. Ridge said CTC
is tailored to the specific community in which it is implemented,
providing a unifying framework to consistently focus on the needs of
children.

``It works,'' she said.

Yeager said Purdue Pharma is the first major company to provide
sponsorship for CTC's goals. He said prevention of problem behavior
benefits society as a whole, rather than having to deal with the
consequences of that behavior later.

``There are things we can do differently,'' he said. ``We don't have
to wait until it's too late.''

Implementation of the CTC initiative will involve a series of training
programs for key community leaders, technical assistance, youth
surveys, an assessment of community risk and protective factors and
development of a long-term prevention strategy.

Laura Harrill, director of community outreach at Blount Memorial
Hospital and facilitator of the Community Health Initiative, said,
``This grant allows us to gather the resources and tools we need to
more effectively and efficiently address the health concerns not only
of our youth, but across generations.''

Purdue Pharma produces the prescription drug OxyContin (Oxycodone HCI
Controlled-Release) Tablets, a powerful pain medication which has the
potential for patient abuse. Yeager said the company recognizes this
potential and is ``the only (drug manufacturer) doing something about
it.''

He said Purdue Pharma's sponsorship of CTC is part of its commitment
to work with health care professionals, law enforcement and local
communities on prevention and education efforts to help curb abuse and
diversion of prescription medications while at the same time keeping
the medications available to health care professionals and people in
pain.