News (Media Awareness Project) - US VA: Editorial: Tracking A Potent Drug's Lethal Attraction |
| Title: | US VA: Editorial: Tracking A Potent Drug's Lethal Attraction |
| Published On: | 2001-10-30 |
| Source: | Roanoke Times (VA) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-01-25 05:50:54 |
TRACKING A POTENT DRUG'S LETHAL ATTRACTION
The Nation Is Fixated On New Dangers, But Old Foes Such As Oxycontin Abuse
Have Not Disappeared.
BEFORE SEPT. 11, OxyContin was a more frightening word in Southwest Virginia
than anthrax. And it remains a more imminent danger.
No one has to worry that abuse of the powerful painkiller might hit this
part of the country and claim lives. It is here, and it has killed.
Oxycodone, the drug's active ingredient, figured in the deaths of 55 people
in Virginia alone since 1997.
And now, a federal review suggests that misuse of the prescription drug may
have played a role in almost 300 deaths nationwide, twice as many as
previously thought.
That report followed closely on the dismaying news that Purdue Pharma, the
maker of OxyContin, admitted aggressively pushing the drug with free,
seven-day supplies, handed out by doctors, as late as this year.
Long before then, law officers in Virginia's coalfield counties and other
parts of the country had identified OxyContin as a scourge. It had turned
many so-called recreational drug users - drug abusers - into addicts
desperate for the heroin-like high they could get from the pills.
The scourge brought a wave of crime and death.
Patient advocates complained that media hype earlier this year unfairly
stigmatized OxyContin. Used properly, it is a powerful tool for treating
severe, chronic pain, a condition that American physicians tend to
undertreat, rather than overtreat.
Granted.
Yet the drug is both easily abused and highly addictive - hardly a product
that should be marketed aggressively. Purdue quit offering Oxy freebies in
July, a few days after the Food and Drug Administration put its highest
possible warning on OxyContin.
But the company continues to maintain that there is no connection between
passing out free samples and an epidemic of abuse.
Patient advocates are right in saying misuse should not deny relief to
chronic pain-sufferers. But more than bad press has been at work in creating
OxyContin's bad rep. Much of it is deserved.
The Nation Is Fixated On New Dangers, But Old Foes Such As Oxycontin Abuse
Have Not Disappeared.
BEFORE SEPT. 11, OxyContin was a more frightening word in Southwest Virginia
than anthrax. And it remains a more imminent danger.
No one has to worry that abuse of the powerful painkiller might hit this
part of the country and claim lives. It is here, and it has killed.
Oxycodone, the drug's active ingredient, figured in the deaths of 55 people
in Virginia alone since 1997.
And now, a federal review suggests that misuse of the prescription drug may
have played a role in almost 300 deaths nationwide, twice as many as
previously thought.
That report followed closely on the dismaying news that Purdue Pharma, the
maker of OxyContin, admitted aggressively pushing the drug with free,
seven-day supplies, handed out by doctors, as late as this year.
Long before then, law officers in Virginia's coalfield counties and other
parts of the country had identified OxyContin as a scourge. It had turned
many so-called recreational drug users - drug abusers - into addicts
desperate for the heroin-like high they could get from the pills.
The scourge brought a wave of crime and death.
Patient advocates complained that media hype earlier this year unfairly
stigmatized OxyContin. Used properly, it is a powerful tool for treating
severe, chronic pain, a condition that American physicians tend to
undertreat, rather than overtreat.
Granted.
Yet the drug is both easily abused and highly addictive - hardly a product
that should be marketed aggressively. Purdue quit offering Oxy freebies in
July, a few days after the Food and Drug Administration put its highest
possible warning on OxyContin.
But the company continues to maintain that there is no connection between
passing out free samples and an epidemic of abuse.
Patient advocates are right in saying misuse should not deny relief to
chronic pain-sufferers. But more than bad press has been at work in creating
OxyContin's bad rep. Much of it is deserved.
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