'POOR MAN'S HEROIN'

A Powerful Painkiller, Increasingly Being Used By Drug Addicts In Other
States, Is Beginning To Surface In Western New York

Just two of these tiny pills a day relieve chronic pain for millions of
people suffering from cancer or serious injury. But in the wrong hands,
OxyContin has become an addictive and deadly narcotic with a high said to
be even more powerful than heroin.

It's America's little-known, but emerging drug problem. And now it's
surfacing on Western New York streets.

OxyContin, a powerful prescription painkiller that has become the illicit
drug of choice in some parts of the country, has popped up in recent months
in several local drug busts from the Southern Tier to Niagara Falls.

Abusers crush the pill into powder, then snort or inject the substance for
a heroinlike high. Local police are keeping a close eye out for this potent
pharmaceutical, considering how common it has become as a recreational drug
in other states.

Emergency room treatment for abuse of oxycodone - OxyContin's main
ingredient - doubled between 1998 and 2000, from about 5,000 cases to more
than 10,000, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Abuse of the
drug is blamed for at least 117 fatal overdoses nationwide over the past
two years, the agency said.

"It's just starting to show up on the streets here," said Lt. Thomas Lyon,
with the Buffalo Police Department's Narcotics Bureau. "It's a major, major
problem in Pennsylvania right now. I wouldn't hesitate to say it will only
be a matter of time before it will become our biggest problem, too."

Local law enforcement officials say the prescription pills are making their
way into the hands of drug dealers, who are selling them on the street for
$25 to $45 apiece.

When Buffalo police searched an Ashland Avenue house in the summer, they
found drugs and more than 200 OxyContin pills. Buffalo officers have made
at least a dozen separate arrests involving OxyContin within the past three
months, Lyon said.

Niagara Falls detectives last month busted a man on charges of illegally
selling painkillers. Police confiscated between 5,000 and 10,000 pills,
capsules and tablets, including OxyContin.

"It hasn't started to surface big yet around here," said Lonnie Williams, a
senior investigator with the Erie County Sheriff's Department's Narcotics
and Intelligence Bureau. "But we've been told they'll bypass heroin in a
heartbeat if they can get to the OxyContin."

Publicity Creates A Fallout

So what is OxyContin?

Known as "oxy," "oxycon" or "OC" on the street, OxyContin is a brand name
for oxycodone, a synthetic opiate developed in the early 1900s. Chemically,
it's a close relative to morphine and codeine.

Legally, OxyContin - which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration - is sold only by prescription for people who suffer
moderate to chronic pain and is safe when used as directed by doctors.

"OxyContin is one of the more popular pain medications," said Dr. Jeffrey
Lackner, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo School of
Medicine. "When it's properly used, it's a very effective drug."

OxyContin's appeal on the streets is its strength.

While narcotic painkillers have been sold illegally on the streets for
years, each OxyContin pill has a higher amount of oxycodone than other
drugs. The painkiller's patented time-release mechanism is designed to
extend the dosage over 12 hours.

But abusers have found a way to release its potency all at once for a
powerful high.

Meanwhile, the negative attention on OxyContin has created a fallout.

Many are concerned the publicity has opened the door for the drug to be
abused even more. And some patients fear an addiction to the painkiller or
worry about its stigma as an abused drug.

Now doctors are becoming reluctant to prescribe the pills, fearing they
could be prosecuted for overprescribing the drug. Last week, a Florida
doctor was convicted of manslaughter because of his negligence in the
deaths of four patients who overdosed on OxyContin.

Drug enforcement officials said they don't want to discourage doctors or
pharmacists from serving patients who need the potent painkillers, but the
DEA isn't going to slack off on efforts to keep the pain medication out of
abusers' hands, either.

OxyContin abuse on the streets is increasingly becoming a problem, said
Will Glaspy, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.

"It's an up-and-coming trend," Glaspy said, "and something we're concerned
about."

Spreading To Cities

The earliest reported cases of OxyContin abuse came not long after the
pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., began making the
drug in 1995.

OxyContin is sometimes referred to as "poor man's heroin" or "hillbilly
heroin," because it was first abused in rural communities in Maine, West
Virginia, Kentucky, western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. They're places
marked by unemployment and populations of chronically ill people, yet off
the beaten path so heroin and cocaine aren't easily accessible.

Rural Chautauqua County not only has seen at least 15 OxyContin cases
during the past several months, but narcotics officers have seen an overall
rise in prescription drug abuse.

Illegal prescription drug cases rose from eight in 1999 to 68 last year,
said Lt. Leo Jones, a Chautauqua County narcotics investigator, who heads
the Jamestown office of the Southern Tier Regional Drug Task Force.

"I attribute most of this to an increase in heroin," Jones said. "When
heroin cases go up, prescription drug cases go up. That's because whenever
heroin users can't get heroin, they'll go to prescription drugs."

Police also have noticed the addiction works in reverse: OxyContin abuse
has gotten people hooked on heroin.

Abuse of the painkillers spread from rural to metro areas as drug users
passed the word. Forged prescriptions for OxyContin became more common, as
did holdups and burglaries at pharmacies, where the pills were being swiped.

"We've had cases where it's stolen from medicine carts at nursing homes.
We've had them stolen from medicine cabinets of homes on the real estate
market," said Detective Lt. M. James Starr, who heads Cheektowaga's vice,
gambling and narcotics squad.

"You've always had the cult drugs - Ecstasy, GHB - but in the last three to
four months, we've seen a rise in pharmaceuticals," said Detective Lt. John
Chella with the Niagara Falls Police Department.

"OxyContin seems to be the new kid on the block. I'm hoping it's not a
dramatic pattern."

Drugmaker Responds

In response to criticism from law enforcement and political leaders, the
drug's maker has since started warning doctors about the potential for
abuse, taken the highest dosage off the market and distributed tamper-proof
prescription pads.

But just how big a problem OxyContin abuse will become is the question no
one can answer right now.

Drug abusers in the Buffalo area tend to stick with what they know, said
Williams, the Erie County narcotics investigator.

Cocaine - powder and crack - is still big. Ecstasy continues to rise among
whites in their teens and 20s. And marijuana is making a strong comeback
because it's profitable, it's easy to sell, and if caught, the penalties
aren't as severe, he said.

But when Williams talks about OxyContin, he can't help being reminded of a
Los Angeles police official who came to the area in the mid-to late 1980s
to warn about a new drug exploding on the streets - crack cocaine.

"There's something that's coming your way, and when it gets here, it's
going to be devastating," the police official said.

"And just the way he said it," Williams said, "was just the way it happened."