'HILLBILLY HEROIN' HITS CAPE BRETON

Potent Painkiller Targeted By Drug Addicts

HALIFAX -- Drug addicts have started robbing the homes of cancer patients
in rural Nova Scotia to score a powerful painkiller that has become the
street drug of choice, police say.

The drug oxycodone, known by its trade name OxyContin, is a synthetic
opiate potentially as addictive as morphine. It is commonly used to treat
people with terminal illnesses such as cancer or chronic, debilitating back
pain, and has earned a reputation as "hillbilly heroin."

"Homes of people with cancer are getting broken into," Constable Greg
Gouthro of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality street crime and drug unit
said in an interview.

"People are even stealing it from their own relatives who have the disease.
In the past few months we've had an increase in armed robberies directly
related to the drug."

Doug Legge, president-elect of the Nova Scotia Pharmacy Association and a
pharmacist for 37 years, agreed it has become a problem.

"We know some product [oxycodone] is being diverted to the street," Mr.
Legge said, adding that some addicts get their fix breaking into homes and
stealing pills from cancer patients and others with a prescription.

"Anyone who knew it was in a house had to be acting on inside information,
say from a family member, but yes, I have heard of that happening," he said.

Illegal use of oxycodone has been a widespread problem in the United States
for several years, but until recently it had not become prevalent in
Canada. Police believe the abuse of oxycodone is more serious in Cape
Breton because Nova Scotia has some of the highest cancer rates in Canada
and Cape Breton has the highest rates in the province.

Tonya Morrison of Sydney was sentenced to two years in prison last week for
holding up a drug store to support her addiction to oxycodone. The
31-year-old strode into a pharmacy in Glace Bay, N.S. armed with a knife
and demanded the drug. She left with a bag of 1,300 oxycodone tablets.

"People say it's the best high they've ever had," Constable Gouthro said.
"Many have told us it's harder to quit than cocaine."

Users either crush the tablet and ingest or snort it, or dilute it in water
and inject it. One 80-milligram tablet sells for about $50 on the street;
20-milligram pills sell for $15 to $25. A pill costs $3 to $4 in a pharmacy.

Abuse is so widespread that the triangle of Sydney, Glace Bay and North
Sydney, N.S., has become known to police and users as Cottonland, street
slang derived from the name OxyContin. Police in the U.S. began to use the
term hillbilly heroin because oxycodone is less expensive to buy than
heroin and more available in rural areas.

"We are finding many more oxy than weed, hash and coke," Constable Gouthro
said. "We've had kids as young as 12 [found] with it and people who are 60."

If they don't steal the drug from people who are ill, addicts find someone
willing to sell their prescription, write counterfeit prescriptions or rob
drug stores.

Sergeant Michel Frenette of the RCMP's drug awareness team in New Brunswick
said the problem of illegal prescription drugs has increased significantly
in the past few years there.

Sgt. Frenette said the painkiller Dilaudid has been most common, but
oxycodone is catching up.

Canadian doctors wrote 126,000 prescriptions for it last year, compared
with 600 in 1995.

The drug's formal name is oxycodone hydrochloride. Although at first it
produces a state of extreme euphoria, oxycodone can be dangerous, causing
respiratory depression and eventually death, if taken in large quantities.
Emergency-room visits to treat oxycodone overdoses jumped 352 per cent from
2001 to 1994, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration.

Mr. Legge said that oxycodone abuse isn't specific to Nova Scotia and
called it "a major problem across Canada."

Several years ago, armed robberies of drug stores were so common in metro
Halifax that the Shoppers Drug Mart chain decided it would no longer
dispense Dilaudid and posted signs to that effect. It has not yet done that
with oxycodone, Mr. Legge said.

Everett Harris, Cape Breton District Health Authority director, said that
in the past four years the region has seen a substantial increase in the
abuse of prescription opiates, particularly oxycodone, and particularly in
males.

"I've seen opiates intended for palliative care diverted to the street," he
said.

"In Halifax, you could finance a nice, warm trip to Jamaica with some
prescriptions. I've seen it done."