TYPICAL OXYCONTIN ADDICT HAS $60,000 HABIT, DOCTOR SAYS

FRANKFORT - A typical OxyContin addict in Kentucky has 12 years of
schooling and a drug habit that costs him the equivalent of $60,000 a year,
a psychiatrist told a state task force studying prescription drug abuse.

The task force's meeting yesterday was designed to gather a wide selection
of opinion and testimony on the drug crisis gripping rural Kentucky, but it
quickly became a lesson -- sometimes heated -- in the abuse of OxyContin,
still the favorite of Kentucky pill abusers.

It began when Dr. Lon Hays, chairman of the University of Kentucky
Department of Psychiatry, offered a statistical report he called "A Profile
of OxyContin Addiction."

The average amount of OxyContin taken by the 187 OxyContin addicts he
studied was 184 milligrams a weekday, plus more on weekends, Hays said. At
$1 a milligram on the street, he said that works out to more than $60,000 a
year.

"How many people with a 12th-grade education can support that?" he asked.
As a result, OxyContin addicts reach a crisis level and seek treatment in
just under 20 months, compared with 15 to 25 years of abuse before
alcoholics seek treatment.

Hays said that of 187 OxyContin addicts he studied, 184 got at least some
of their drugs from street dealers. Fifty got pills directly from doctors.

He questioned whether all those addicts who were getting pills from doctors
were really ill enough to need them.

In what he called a "take-home message" for Purdue Pharma, the drug company
that makes OxyContin, Hays said, "I'm not blasting OxyContin as a drug, but
in the wrong hands it can be a very powerful tool for destruction."

Two Purdue representatives at the session outlined the company's effort to
fight abuse in Kentucky and nationally, describing $150,000 in grants made
to 15 police agencies in the state, and several prevention programs,
ranging from newspaper ads to programs aimed at middle school children,
punctuated by colorful juvenile phrases to attract their attention.

Alan Must, executive director of Purdue's state government and legislative
affairs office, cited Internet pharmacies that offer to fill prescriptions
online as a major new source of pills, and "we don't have the answer."

Purdue's marketing of OxyContin to doctors -- described by critics as
overly aggressive -- drew several comments during the day.

Must responded to some, saying that sales representatives were given a
"refresher course" in approved sales methods last year. He said the company
operates a hotline that doctors can use to complain and an "internal ethics
line" for employees.

Since 2001, he said, Purdue has conducted 30 investigations of complaints
and has "taken action" in 20 cases. He didn't say what the actions were.

Some speakers were unimpressed with Purdue's efforts to help.

"We've been given a firestorm and now they're giving us a half-inch garden
hose to fight it with," said state Rep. Jack Coleman, D-Burgin. "If they
want to come forward and make this right that's fine, but this has been
good-cop, bad-cop," he said of the company's record in Kentucky. "I'm ready
for the real Purdue Pharma to come forward."