 Prevalence
of OxyContin Abuse: |
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Oxycontin has become the NUMBER ONE selling
brand-name prescription painkiller with a reputation of being
ABUSED for its HEROIN-like high.
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July 18, 2001 Purdue Pharma Important Drug
Warning Letter OxyContin Withdrawal Anyone who is using OxyContin legitimately and does not have an
abuse or addiction problem should still expect to taper off of the
painkiller to avoid complete OxyContin withdrawal. |
OxyContin InformationFuture of OxyContinIn August of 2001, Purdue Pharma announced they had come up with blueprints for a “smart pill” that would be harder to abuse than OxyContin. Purdue began researching a safer alternative to OxyContin in response to the DEA, FDA, and medical experts concerned with the high number of OxyContin addiction and abuse cases that have created crime and theft as a result of the growing problem. The new painkiller will not be available for at least 2 more years, so the future of OxyContin until that time still remains uncertain. For the legitimate patients that do not abuse the drug, obtaining and filling their prescriptions continues to become harder and harder as more and more doctors are becoming more apprehensive of prescribing the addictive drug and pharmacies are no longer carrying it due to the pharmacy theft and robberies. Doctors started to feel uncomfortable because they had to question their patients to better identify if the request for OxyContin was legitimate or if the patient hoped to receive the painkiller for reasons of abuse and addiction. The fear of OxyContin is legitimate based on the figures showing that OxyContin has become more widely abused so soon after its 1995 release than any other prescription drug in the last 20 years.
It did not take long for people to learn how to abuse OxyContin, and people began to crush and then snort or inject the drug in order to bypass the time-release formula that is supposed to allow the drug to provide relief for a 12-hour stretch of time. OxyContin abuse first started to surface in rural areas but quickly spread and even began surfacing as recreational “club drugs”. Purdue claims that OxyContin addicts and abusers will find the new drug “very undesirable”. Unlike OxyContin, the new drug would be embedded with microscopic beads of naltrexone, which is a narcotic antagonist that counteracts the medicine. The beads on the new medication would have a coating of a chemical to keep them from dissolving so that the painkiller would work very similar to OxyContin when taken as directed. Different from OxyContin, the new painkiller if crushed or chopped up would make the coating on the beads break and release the naltrexone and end up canceling the drug’s effects. Tests are currently being performed on the new drug and officials have not yet decided if oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin, will be used or if a different narcotic should be used. If approved in the future, the FDA will have approved one of the only few abuse-resistant drugs available. Purdue has been met with a lot of criticism for not formulating an alternative to OxyContin sooner. OxyContin patients have filed lawsuits against Purdue for their OxyContin addictions they have developed, in addition to lawsuits on the illicit abuse of the drug. Some critics think Purdue’s new drug development is simply a response to the legal action taken against them.
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What is OxyContin?
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