LETHBRIDGE NOT IMMUNE FROM ABUSE OF OXYCONTIN

It's pure, potent and becoming increasingly popular among junkies despite
being blamed for hundreds of overdose deaths across the country.

Staff Sgt. Jim Carriere, head of the organized crime section with the
Lethbridge Regional Police Service, says OxyContin or "oxy" has been around
for a few years and is known to drug users for triggering a powerful high.

"It's a drug that's trafficked on the streets of Lethbridge," he says.

Canada's chief coroners and medical examiners have been tracking OxyContin
overdoses for months and at a recent meeting decided to prepare a national
alert which is expected to be issued this fall.

Reports released earlier this week indicate OxyContin is believed to be
responsible for 250 deaths in Ontario since 1998 and dozens more across Canada.

Police say the pills cost roughly $15 to $60 apiece on the street depending
on their size and can be ingested orally, dissolved in water and injected
or crushed into a fine powder and snorted.

When snorted, oxy delivers a morphine-like high and feeling of euphoria.

Carriere says oxy abusers in the city range from teenagers to adults and
the drug has become popular on the street because of its purity and wide
availability.

"This stuff is (pharmaceutically) clean. People with addiction problems can
rely on it."

Other drugs, such as crystal meth that is cooked up from a combination of
ingredients, are not as reliable.

Carriere says oxy is commonly stolen from family members who have filled a
legitimate prescription, during break and enters and robberies.

Last year a local pharmacist was robbed at gunpoint after a man entered a
downtown pharmacy and demanded narcotics.

Police said the robber specified certain drugs he was after, including MS
Contin, a long-acting form of morphine that produces a feeling of euphoria
similar to the effects of oxy.

Over the past 12 years, that same downtown pharmacy has been broken into
three times by culprits looking for drugs.

Carriere added there are also incidents of "double doctoring" where a
person visits numerous physicians and obtains prescriptions for the drug
from each.

"Sometimes doctors get conned."

Many of the city's pharmacies no longer stock medications such as OxyContin
or Percocet -- both contain oxycodone, a narcotic extracted from opium
poppies which is also used to make heroin -- because keeping a supply of
the drugs is too tempting for traffickers and junkies looking for their
next fix.