LEGITIMATE PATIENTS PAY THE PRICE

POWELL'S POINT, N.C. - When the pain overwhelms her, Mary Pittman props
pillows around herself and covers the bedroom window with a comforter to
keep out the light. For weeks, she's been confined to bed in her home on
the Outer Banks near Kitty Hawk because of crippling pain in her knees,
back and abdomen.

"Look at them," she says as she and her three daughters lie in bed watching
the movie "Anastasia." "It's a bright, sunny day, and where are they? In
the house."

Pittman cuddles with her 6-year-old, Mercedes.

"She's going to be 7," says Pittman, 34, "and I've been down half her life."

In the late 1990s, health problems, including degenerative disc disease and
a shattered knee, left her bedridden. In November 2000, she started taking
OxyContin, and until recently was able to withstand the pain.

But five months ago, Pittman lost her access to OxyContin when the Drug
Enforcement Administration seized her doctor's registration to prescribe
narcotics, saying, among other things, that he inappropriately prescribed
narcotics to abusers.

Pain patients such as Pittman say the DEA, police, the medical community
and the media have too heavily focused on OxyContin abuse when the drug has
brought relief to thousands.

The fury over OxyContin, patients say, has prompted some doctors to label
pain patients as addicts, and at times cut patients off.

Officials from Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, a privately held company
which manufactures the drug, also fear patients may go without treatment.

The company did not anticipate the extent of abuse of OxyContin, officials
say. Purdue has taken steps to discourage abuse, including developing an
abuse-resistant pill, but it will likely take months or years before it's
available.

Publicity about OxyContin, meanwhile, has frightened doctors, says Purdue
spokesman Jim Heins.

"What happens," Heins says, "is that patients suffer."

DEA and local law enforcement officials counter that abuse of few other
prescription drugs has presented as massive a challenge. Part of the blame,
say some doctors and addiction experts, lies with Purdue.

The head of the DEA testified in Congress last December that Purdue has
contributed to the disproportionate abuse of OxyContin by representing the
drug as having a lower abuse potential than other pain relievers and
encouraging physicians to use OxyContin over less addictive painkillers. To
curb abuse, the company has launched an education and prevention campaign.

Company officials, meanwhile, argue OxyContin fills a crucial need.

About 50 million people in the U.S. suffer from chronic pain, but a
majority go untreated.

Pittman was a patient of Dr. Joseph Talley, a general practitioner who ran
a medical clinic in Grover, N.C. But when the DEA suspended Talley's
ability to prescribe narcotics in February, Pittman's world collapsed.

Unable to find a doctor, she went to a Virginia pain clinic, where she says
doctors treated her "like a drug addict" and wouldn't prescribe narcotics.

The pain returned.

In May, Pittman found a doctor in Raleigh willing to prescribe narcotics.

"Now I totally understand when someone says they hurt," Pittman says. "My
heart breaks for them."