New Brunswick leads Atlantic Canada for oxycodone use

From the Globe and Mail:
Although it was Newfoundland and Nova Scotia that first raised alarms about the abuse of so-called "hillbilly heroin" in Atlantic Canada, it is New Brunswick that accounts for most of the prescriptions for the highly addictive painkiller oxycodone, a new Health Canada report says.

During the first six months of 2005, more than 92,500 prescriptions were filled for oxycodone-based painkillers such as OxyContin at 651 retail pharmacies throughout the Atlantic provinces. ...more