DRUG WAR FOCUSES ON PAINKILLER ABUSE

WASHINGTON - After years in which marijuana, cocaine and heroin were
by far the main focus of the nation's war on drugs, the Bush
administration is attacking the rising abuse of prescription drugs.

While marijuana remains the nation's most abused drug, according to
government and private studies, narcotic pain relievers like OxyContin
and Vicodin, along with a variety of some other prescription
medications, have overtaken amphetamines to rank second.

A nationwide study by the University of Michigan showed that from the
2002-03 school year, nonmedical use of prescription drugs among
students in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades increased even as use of
other illicit drugs dropped by 11 percent.

And, like street drugs, prescription drug abuse produces headlines
about celebrity drug users. Talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh
admitted last year that he was addicted to painkillers.

Authorities in Palm Beach County, Fla., are investigating Limbaugh and
several of his doctors on suspicion of "doctor shopping," the practice
of contacting a number of physicians as a way of getting more drugs
than are medically necessary -- a felony in Florida.

Part of the problem is that prescription drugs are advertised to
millions of people every day over the Internet.

Many of those drugs are from foreign sources that state and federal
authorities cannot easily trace, let alone regulate.

The House Government Reform Committee planned hearings this week on a
bill that would require such Web sites to identify their place of
business, as well as affiliated doctors and pharmacists, and would ban
any sales made without an in-person consultation with a doctor and a
valid prescription.

Beyond congressional interest, the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy has for the first time instructed federal agencies with
anti-drug programs to develop new strategies to combat prescription
drugs' abuse and illegal marketing.

"We don't want to wait until we get what we had with the crack
epidemic," said John P. Walters, who as the office's director serves
as the nation's "drug czar."

As a measure of the administration's concern about prescription drugs,
President Bush is seeking $12.6 billion for anti-drug programs next
year.

That would be a 4.6 percent increase, a request nine times as high as
the average increase proposed for programs that do not involve defense
or national security.

Much of the responsibility for the new focus on prescription drugs
falls on the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Walters said the FDA was being instructed to improve labeling of
commonly abused drugs and to provide doctors more information about
the medicines they prescribe. The DEA has been asked to shut down
online pharmacies selling drugs without prescriptions and to
discourage credit card companies from facilitating sales.

Since arriving on the market in 1996, OxyContin has become one of the
most commonly prescribed narcotics for treating pain, notable for a
time-release delivery and an active ingredient that is twice as potent
as morphine.

Abusers crush the tablets to gain its full impact at once through
snorting or injection. The effect is a euphoria that many drug experts
say is equal to that produced by heroin.

Rural areas and other economically distressed regions have been hit
especially hard by OxyContin and other painkillers.

Louise Howell, executive director of Kentucky River Community Care, a
social services agency in the state's Appalachian region, said easy
access to prescription drugs through doctor shopping and Internet
sales had brought painful consequences.

Citing cases in which users were supporting their habits by selling
their homes and stealing from their families, she said: "It's
overwhelming us. We're imploding, and it's shameful."

Sgt. Bill Purcell of the Virginia state police reports the same
problems in southwest Virginia, where he supervises a regional drug
task force.

In the last five years, he said, there have been "dramatic increases"
in illicit use of prescription drugs, a trend characterized by the
theft of doctors' prescription pads, callers to pharmacies who pretend
to be physicians, and nurses who call in prescriptions for themselves.

"These drugs are everywhere," Purcell said.

Michael Horn, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, a
Justice Department agency that provides analysis for policymakers and
support for drug-fighting programs, said he planned to shift more
resources into generating information on prescription drug abuse.

"The increasing rates we've seen," Horn said, "are kind of
scary."

But even the proposed level of federal spending may not make much
difference, state and local law enforcement officers say.

"Even the DEA people I talk to say they are hurting for resources,"
said Purcell. "Unless we get more resources, we'll always be behind
the eight ball."