Oxycontin Page 5

Surveys conducted over 2005 and 2006 have revealed some of the attitudes teens have about prescription drugs today. And we have to be honest here, if this survey is even remotely accurate, - it sure doesn't look like parents are talking to their kids very much about the subject of drugs. Here's some highlights:

And perhaps our feeling that parents aren't talking to their kids is backed up by some actual research. A study conducted recently in Canada found that the average kid today spends 3 to 4 hours a day watching television and an average of 13 minutes a day talking to their parents. So should anyone be surprised that many kids don't know anything about prescription drugs and unfortunately, many parents don't know anything about their kids?

By the way, when we conduct seminars and information sessions and we give parents those figures, many will comment half-jokingly, "Most kids talk to their parents an average of 13 minutes a day? I'm surprised it's that high."

People who don't know that much about substance abuse and addiction will often use the "fear of overdose" as a scare tactic when talking to their kids about drugs. It usually falls on deaf ears though, because by the time the child hears that kind of rhetoric, they already have personal experience to the contrary. They probably know at least one other kid who has tried it, and not overdosed, so you really have to couch your statements for maximum credibility.

But in the world of Oxycontin and similar drugs, overdose is a relevant topic because . deaths from overdoses of Oxycontin have risen dramatically in certain regions of the U.S. and Canada. And one of the reasons why is because in some areas, Oxycontin is the number one problem drug, far ahead of any other. There are simply more people using it and abusing it, and it follows that a percentage of them are going to have a bad, real bad, or fatal experience. So let's take a look specifically at Oxycontin.

The manufacturer of Oxycontin is Purdue Pharma L.P. They first introduced OxyContin in 1995 to help cancer patients, but soon the painkiller was being recommended for moderate to severe pain. And boy did that marketing tactic pay dividends. World-wide revenues for Oxycontin in 2003 were estimated at $1.6 billion dollars.

Spokespeople for Purdue Pharma contend it's the people who abuse the drug who get into trouble, stating that OxyContin is no more or less dangerous that any of the other prescription opiates that are currently available. That notwithstanding, they are currently facing almost 400 lawsuits in the United States over Oxycontin and have been criticized by both the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for aggressive marketing tactics that encourage physicians to prescribe the drug.

In May of 2007, the Purdue Frederick Company and three of its top executives were ordered to pay more than $634 million in fines for "misbranding" OxyContin. The company's president, chief legal officer and former chief medical officer entered guilty pleas in federal court on the charges.

According to John L. Brownlee, United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, the Purdue Frederick Company was (quote) "accused of fraudulently marketing OxyContin by claiming that the prescription pain killer was less addictive, less subject to abuse, and less likely to cause withdrawal symptoms than other pain medications when there was no medical research to support these claims and without Food and Drug Administration approval of these claims. Even in the face of warnings from health care professionals, the media, and members of its own sales force that OxyContin was being widely abused and causing harm to our citizens, Purdue, under the leadership of its top executives, continued to push a fraudulent marketing campaign that promoted Oxycontin as less addictive, less subject to abuse, and less likely to cause withdrawal."

In a news release, Brownlee added, "In the process, scores died as a result of OxyContin abuse and an even greater number of people became addicted to OxyContin; a drug that Purdue led many to believe was safer, less abusable, and less addictive than other pain medications on the market." Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler added, "Purdue abused the drug approval process which relies on drug manufacturers to be forthright in reporting clinical data and, instead, misled physicians about the addiction and withdrawal issues involved with Oxycontin."

The lesson here ladies and gentleman? The drug industry like any other industry is driven by money, profit and return-on-investment. Remember that the next time you see ten commercials for drugs during the nightly half hour national newscast.

Oxycontin is a semi-synthetic opiate manufactured by modifying the chemical "thebaine," an organic chemical found in opium. It's the active ingredient in a number of commonly prescribed pain relief medications such as Percocet, Percodan, and Tylox. But note, Oxycontin is far more powerful than something like a Percocet. For instance, one 80 milligram dose of Oxycontin is the equivalent of taking 16 typical dosage Percocet pills.

Each of these contains oxycodone in small doses combined with other active ingredients like aspirin. Introduced in 1996, OxyContin is available in doses ranging in strength from 10mg to 80mg tablets. There was a 160mg tablet, (shown in the upper left sidebar above) but that was suspended in May 2001 due to its severe abuse potential. The actual intended use of OxyContin is for long-term relief (up to 12 hours) of moderate to severe pain associated with conditions such as cancer and arthritis.

So let's make no mistake, properly applied to those applications it was intended for, this is a drug that's looked at as a God-send for people with crippling pain who really need it. (About 16% of the North American population live with persistent or chronic pain.) Of course the problem is, like with almost all drugs, Oxycontin is subject to abuse, and federal officials have said no other prescription drug in the past two decades has been so widely abused so soon after its release.

One of the unique properties of OxyContin is that the tablets are time released. In other words, the effects of the drug and its analgesic (pain masking) properties take effect over a set period of time rather than all at once. It's similar to codeine and methadone in its analgesic properties. It has been dubbed "Hillbilly Heroin" because of the widespread practice in rural Appalachia of crushing the tablet to override its time-release mechanism. Addicts typically inject or snort the crushed powder.

Of all the products containing oxycodone, OxyContin tends to the the most recognized and the one most frequently abused and is often linked to death by overdose. Sometimes seen as a "white collar" addiction, oxycodone abuse has increased among all ethnic and economic backgrounds and relatively speaking, it's one of the more expensive drugs to buy on the street.

Prices vary throughout the U.S. and Canada, but a rule of thumb seems to be about a dollar to a dollar fifty per gram, thus making it a fairly lucrative item for dealers. We know some users who began using Oxycontin at the rate of perhaps one 40 mg tab every two days and toward the end, they had ended up doing between four and nine 80 mg tabs a day! That's an increase in tolerance of almost ten times.

As a result, many of those who become addicted to Oxycontin will often have to resort to various types of crime to support the habit. Typically, before they resort to crime, they will have already pawned everything they own, stolen as much as possible from their family, and conned most of their friends out of whatever they could get.

Drug stores and pharmacies are increasingly becoming the targets of robberies (often violent) with the perpetrators looking for Oxycontin in particular. And you don't need an advanced degree in criminal justice to understand why - there are two very obvious reasons for this.

One, someone who is addicted to drugs like Oxycontin will do anything to get them and going into a pharmacy and committing a robbery is for them, perfectly logical. The second reason is that even if they're not an addict, pound for pound, stealing Oxycontin is easily one of the most lucrative items to steal. How lucrative you ask? Well if the street price for Oxycontin is $ 1.00 a gram, then a bottle of 100 pills at 40 grams each is worth FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS. They would have to steal at least two or three cars to make that much money!

Here's a fairly recent case in point. A man walks into a pharmacy in Indiana and robs it. But he doesn't rob it of the money in the cash register, because that would probably only amount to maybe a thousand dollars. What he does rob them of, is all their Oxycontin and walks out with eighty-five thousand dollars in pills. Methamphetamine has already affected how over-the-counter cold medicine is sold in pharmacies. And rest assured, Oxycontin theft and theft of other drugs is ultimately going to affect the level of security you're going to see in pharmacies. It's just a matter of time.

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