TIME FOR ACTION

In the final installment of a series, a story on the front page of today's
newspaper reports that substance abuse treatment centers in the Carolinas
are being overwhelmed by the exploding use of a powerful new prescription drug.

The drug is a painkiller called OxyContin, which changed the prescription
market in 1996 by giving relief more powerful and long-lasting than other
prescription narcotics. For people with chronic and serious pain, it's a
miracle drug. But it's also powerfully attractive to abusers -- easier to
get than heroin, cheaper than cocaine, gentler on the stomach than alcohol
or other prescription narcotics.

In some areas of the Carolinas, OxyContin distribution is among the
heaviest in the nation. Some of the increase can be attributed to the
drug's growing popularity among pain patients. But as OxyContin spread, so
did crime and abuse. Law enforcers say abuse of few other prescription
drugs has caused such desperation among addicts.

Demand for treatment has surged along with OxyContin abuse. But the problem
is that treatment centers, particularly those offering inpatient treatment,
already were short on beds, staff and resources. In North Carolina, an
estimated 876,000 people need treatment for substance abuse. In South
Carolina the figure is 310,000. At many centers the waiting lists are weeks
long, and the OxyContin crisis is making matters rapidly worse.

Our four-part series of stories has described a problem that calls for
urgent action. The potency of OxyContin abuse is causing terrible wreckage
in human lives.

And for reasons legitimate and otherwise, costs to taxpayers are soaring.
North Carolina Medicaid paid $14.3 million for OxyContin prescriptions in
2001, nearly three times higher than in 1999. In the same period, South
Carolina's bill increased almost eightfold, to $8.4 million.

OxyContin has quickly overwhelmed much previous knowledge and method in
pain therapy and abuse control. Primary care physicians need new training
in addiction issues. The Carolinas need to invest in monitoring systems to
help identify doctors who over-prescribe narcotics and patients who fill
prescriptions in suspicious volume.

The Carolinas also need to invest in more and better treatment resources.
This powerful new drug is causing powerful problems that aren't going to go
away.

"It's the newest, strongest, most seductive drug out there," says one
expert. "People can get pretty messed up on it."

Says another: "It's the heroin of the 2000s, no doubt about it."