HEALTH CHECK
Prescription For Addiction
written by Dr . Scott Mindel l photo David Smart
Heroin was once thought of as an inner city problem , not something you would hear about in small towns throughout America--a drug used by the lower income class . Today the landscape has dramatically changed and it has become a nationwide epidemic hitting rural areas , suburbs , and small cities including Seattle .
The rise in heroin addiction has resulted from over prescribed opioid painkillers such as OxyContin . As restrictions have tightened on prescribing these painkillers , addicts have turned to the streets and discovered heroin to be a cheaper and stronger way to get high . An OxyContin pill can cost around $ 80 on the street , while a hit of heroin is $ 10- $ 20 . Over half of heroin addicts reportedly started abusing prescription painkillers before they ever used heroin .
OxyContin was created by the Sacklers family under their company , Purdue Pharma , which they purchased in 1952 . In the 70 ’ s they developed a controlled drug release system called Contin and twelve years later released the patented pill , MS Contin , an extended-release formulation of morphine for cancer patients . In the early 90 ’ s , the patent on MS Contin was expiring and Purdue Pharma was set out to develop a new painkilling moneymaker and did so with oxycodone .
Oxycodone was created by German scientists in 1916 after the Bayer corporation ’ s drug , heroin , was banned in America . It was introduced in America in 1939 and was released for prescription in 1950 as Percodan in combination with aspirin . By 1963 , it was the source of one-third of all drug addiction in California , and in 1970 oxycodone was listed by the DEA defined as having a high potential for abuse and considered dangerous .
Yet Purdue Pharma took the generic painkiller oxycodone and installed a timed-release mechanism , which allegedly allowed the drug ’ s effects to spread over 12 hour periods . Not long after OxyContin ’ s launch in 1995 , primary care doctors were prescribing it for a laundry list of painful symptoms .
The drug crisis began in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky . These rural areas are primarily populated with laborers in industries such as coal mining and timbering that were prone to injuries and pain . The promise of living pain-free with prescription opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin was marketed very aggressively throughout these states the 1990s and early 2000s . Sales hit $ 1.5 billion by 2002 and today they have reached over $ 3 billion .
Addiction problems started to arise when pain relief wasn ’ t lasting as long as promised . Some were experiencing the return of pain in under eight hours that came with withdrawal side effects . Purdue insisted that the formula was correct and encouraged physicians to provide stronger dosages to patients complaining of the pill not lasting instead of prescribing it more frequently . The stronger dose didn ’ t increase the length of pain relief and instead caused worse withdrawal effects and in turn a demand for more .
It was also discovered that not only had more cases come about with OxyContin not lasting , but that it wasn ’ t abuse-resistant as reported . If the pill was crunch up and snorted , it would break the time-release mechanism for an immediate heroin-like high .
26 l VILLE l FASHION ISSUE