DRUG FIRM HELPS FIGHT ILLICIT OXYCONTIN USE

Company gives funds to police

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Since March, undercover deputies in Letcher County have
arrested more than two dozen suspected OxyContin abusers and dealers by
using new $250 hidden tape recorders to document stings.

Purdue Pharma, which manufacturers the pain drug, provided the money to buy
the machines -- and a lot more.

The company has given Letcher County and seven other Kentucky police
agencies $10,000 each this year to fight illicit drugs. Five more grants are
pending.

"This money was like a blessing," said Letcher County Sheriff Danny Webb,
who had no such funds available when he took office in January.

For Purdue, the handouts are part of a high-dollar program aimed at
repairing OxyContin's battered image.

As OxyContin became a favorite of narcotics abusers, many doctors in
Appalachia and other rural parts of the nation turned skittish about
prescribing it and a number of patients shied away from taking it.

Purdue now is spending heavily -- some $130 million a year by its measure --
to help curb that illicit use and restore the drug's medical reputation, the
Lexington Herald-Leader reported Sunday.

About $100 million is paying for research into a new formula for the drug
that would thwart abuse yet keep its pain-relief qualities, said Robin
Hogen, Purdue's vice president of public affairs.

Purdue is spending $6 million for television and newspaper ads in Kentucky
and six other states to rally the public against illegal pill use.

The ads build on another radio campaign ran in Florida, Cincinnati,
Philadelphia and West Virginia, discouraging illegal use of prescription
drugs.