OxyContin Awareness - What they are saying

"I'm told what makes this unique as a painkiller is that it's very effective and it has a very level dosage," said Inspector Jeremiah Daley, commander of the Philadelphia Police' Narcotics Division.

(But when chewed, crushed, snorted or injected)

"It seems to be a substitute for heroin and they seem to be using it to get
a more intense high," he said.

The full jolt of the painkiller's effect is comparable to that of high-grade heroin, medical and law enforcement sources say.

"It's one of the next-closest things you can get to heroin," said Howard Haines, a pharmacist at Virtua-Memorial Hospital Burlington County in
Mount Holly.

OxyContin is a leading treatment for chronic pain, but officials fear it may succeed crack cocaine on the street.....TIME MAGAZINE

In recent months, OxyContin abuse has begun to take place in the Philadelphia region.

His death is one of at least 20 in Philadelphia since last November in
which the drug was one of the contributing factors, authorities said.

"In six or seven of those cases, OxyContin was the cause of death," said
Jeff Moran, spokesman for the city's Health Department.

Its abuse is becoming a growing problem nationwide. Last month, the
National Drug Intelligence Center released a report calling its abuse "a
major problem, particularly in the eastern United States."

OxyContin, produced by Purdue Pharmaceutical in Stamford, Conn., came on the market in 1996. It is sold in dosages of 10, 20, 80 and 160 milligrams. ALL doses are time-release tablets that deliver the drug over a 12-hour period.

It sells on the street for roughly $1 a milligram, authorities said.

Patients who take it for medical reasons are supposed to swallow it with
water. Abusers, however, are chewing it or crushing it before ingesting it,
cops say.

Edward Barbieri, a toxicologist at National Medical Services in Willow
Grove, said anyone can die from it if they chew it or crush it and then
take it.

"If you take enough, by itself, it can kill," he said.

Taking it with alcohol or any other type of depressant increases those
chances, he said.

"OxyContin is a respiratory depressant and so is alcohol so you have the
added effect," he said. "It makes you stop breathing and then the
cardiovascular system stops functioning so your heart stops pumping and
then you die."

Bucks County District Attorney Diane Gibbons called OxyContin's abuse and illegal trafficking a "growing problem" in the county, particularly in
lower Bucks County.

It is highly addictive when abused. Internet health-care message boards contain numerous postings from OxyContin abusers desperate for ways to kick their habit, and reporting behavior including violent rages when they tried to abruptly stop using it.

Agent Mary Vaira, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration in Philadelphia, said that despite the availability of heroin in the city, OxyContin has literally come from nowhere to a position of newfound popularity in barely six months.

"We know it's here and we know it's bad," she said.