JUDGE DISMISSES OXYCONTIN SUIT

He Says Three Men Who Sued One Maker Of The Drug Had Abused Other
Medications

ROANOKE - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit yesterday against
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma by three men who claimed they became
addicted to the painkiller while using it to treat their various
medical problems.

In a 39-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge James P. Jones pointed
out that A.F. McCauley, 70, Charles C. Brummett, 51, and Joseph D.
Deckard, 42, abused a number of drugs and failed to show that
OxyContin was the source of their misery.

"They are essentially attempting in this case to recover from Purdue
damages for injuries that have not been established to be directly
attributable to Purdue," Jones wrote.

Abingdon attorney Emmitt Yeary, who filed the multibillion-dollar
lawsuit in Big Stone Gap, said a jury would have recognized the effect
OxyContin had on their lives.

"They were always able to cope with those other pain medications,"
Yeary said in a telephone interview. "Only when OxyContin came into
their lives, they weren't able to handle it. When you have something
so addictive, you can reasonably expect there was some sort of abuse."

McCauley, a coal miner from Lee County, started receiving pain
medication in the 1980s after injuring his back. According to court
documents, he started taking OxyContin in 2000 and mixed the drug with
the other pain medications.

McCauley eventually started purchasing OxyContin on the street, taking
it twice a day until it became "really, really hard and expensive to
get." He became addicted and entered detoxification programs several
times, according to court documents.

Brummett, also from Lee County, and Deckard, of Scott County, received
numerous drugs for back injuries and took OxyContin more frequently
than prescribed, according to court documents.

OxyContin is a potent narcotic designed to provide 12 hours of pain
relief for people with long-term pain. The drug became a major problem
in Appalachia as people learned to release all the medication at once
by crushing the tablets.

In his ruling, Jones sympathized with the men. The case, he said, does
not settle the many questions about how pain should be treated.

"As a trial judge hearing criminal cases, I am unfortunately all too
familiar with the human misery caused by the abuse of prescription
drugs, particularly including OxyContin," Jones wrote.

"Lives wasted, families disrupted, communities devastated, because of
misuse of these drugs. Did Purdue oversell OxyContin, for its own
profit? Does the relief afforded by high-dosage opioids to those with
severe, life-altering pain outweigh the risks of harm from addiction?
These cases do not answer those questions."

Lawyers for Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma could not be reached
by phone for comment yesterday.