Pharmaceutical drugs overshadowing heroin

From the National Post:
Heroin is fast being replaced by legal pharmaceutical drugs such as OxyContin and morphine among street users of opioids, suggests a national survey of addicts that underscores the challenges and opportunities of the changing drug trade.

Users of pharmaceutical opioids are less likely to inject their narcotics, which is good for curbing infectious disease, but they are also more likely to mix them dangerously with cocaine, crack and other street drugs, the newly published study indicates.

Meanwhile, experts are struggling to understand a supply system that includes retirees peddling painkiller prescriptions and pharmaceutical company employees selling purloined stock. With Canada one of the world's biggest medical consumers of opioids, which provide users with an anesthetizing release, the abundance of legal supplies has undoubtedly fed the illicit street market, researchers say.

There is an "urgent need" to more closely investigate and comprehend the new opioid scene, says the study published this month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review by researchers in B.C. and Toronto. ...more

Database puts the squeeze on addicts who rob pharmacies

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
Just weeks before last Christmas, Nicholas A. Dent fed his addiction to painkillers through a relentless show of force. In 10 days, he robbed a dozen pharmacies for OxyContin pills before stepping in front a security camera that revealed his identity to police.

Dent, 28, is one of many drug addicts over the past few years behind a spike of violence against pharmacies.

Federal authorities went after the pharmaceutical company making the painkiller, Purdue Pharma, for misleading doctors about the drug's addictiveness. The company was made to pay more than $600 million in fines.

But Purdue has also joined police and crime-prevention groups to stop addicts with a heavy dose of information technology.

Early last month, police officers and pharmacists in the Seattle area were introduced to RxPatrol, a nationwide database of robberies, break-ins and forged prescriptions at pharmacies. ...more

Doctors warn of potential dangers of OxyContin

From CTV News:
Canadian physicians are warning of the potential dangers of the prescription painkiller OxyContin following a high-profile case in which a Newfoundland and Labrador doctor was convicted of trafficking the potentially addictive narcotic.

On Monday, Dr. Sean Buckingham was convicted of five counts of sexual assault, six counts of trafficking painkillers such as OxyContin and lorazepam (sold under the name Ativan), and one count of assault.

Witnesses testified during the two-month trial that Buckingham provided them with drugs in exchange for money and sexual favours over a two-year period. ...more

Pharmacists face dilemma over dispensing narcotics: provincial board

From the (Corner Brook, NF) Western Star:
Pharmacists in this province are finding themselves in a dilemma over dispensing narcotics like OxyContin, the Newfoundland and Labrador Pharmacy Board says.

"The dilemma is you don't want to be sucked in by people abusing it," said Don Rowe, secretary-registrar of the board. "You always have to be vigilant looking for potential abuse or signs of it, but at the same time not making a legitimate customer feel like some kind of a criminal just because they have been prescribed a drug like OxyContin or Percocet or whatever."

The "sucking in" hasn't always come from only patients, as the recent conviction of St. John's physician Dr. Sean Buckingham made evident. Last week, Buckingham was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault, assault and drug trafficking in Newfoundland Supreme Court. Buckingham, who ran a practice on Queen's Road, was found guilty of having provided several former patients with prescription drugs, including OxyContin and Ativan, in return for sexual favours....more

Solutions to oxycodone addiction

From Canoe.ca:
A Wallaceburg man gets hooked on OxyContin and helps launch a $175-million lawsuit against Purdue Pharma Canada, the maker of the drug.

City hall calls for a $3.7-million, five-year strategy on substance abuse.

Pain specialists suggest more training for family doctors.

Pharmacists ask for tools to track patients.

Addiction experts ask all of us to stop blaming the addicts.

There seem to be dozens of possible solutions to halting widespread and growing abuse of oxycodone-based painkiller drugs in London. ...more

Sex & drugs case hurts pain care: MDs

From the National Review of Medicine:
Whether St John's, NL, family physician Dr Sean Buckingham gave drug addicts opioid prescriptions in exchange for sex is for the jury in his ongoing trial to decide. But pain care physicians from across Newfoundland and Canada fear his alleged crimes have already done their damage by making MDs too afraid to prescribe strong pain meds.

Dr Buckingham was first arrested in May 2005 after a long-running investigation by police that involved wire-tapping, raids and 24-hour surveillance, called Operation Remedy. He is currently facing 23 charges, ranging from drug trafficking to sexual assault. During the last week of October, the jury heard shocking testimony from three women who allege they had sex with Dr Buckingham in exchange for prescriptions for opioids painkillers. ...more

Pharmacists caught in the squeeze

From the London (Ont.) Free Press:
When the pharmacist leaves his store for a break, he makes sure to take off the white jacket that identifies his profession.

"I don't want people to know I am a pharmacist," he says. "I have kids coming up to me and bugging me. 'Can you get me some Oxy?' "

It can be just as tense inside the pharmacy.

Occasionally, obvious members of outlaw motorcycle clubs have come in with legitimate doctor's prescriptions for large amounts of OxyContin, he says.

Rather than question them or the doctor, he has filled them out. ...more

Atlantic Canadians sue makers of OxyContin

From CTV News:
More Canadians who became addicted to OxyContin are taking the maker of the painkiller to court claiming the company undersold its addictive side effects.

A class-action lawsuit, claiming Purdue Pharma L.P. knew of OxyContin's addictiveness, is to be launched in Nova Scotia Supreme Court next week.

"I'd like to see the people that made it and made money off of it be held accountable for it," George Bellefontaine told CTV Newsnet. "Why should they get rich off of hurting people?"

Bellefontaine, who is joining the suit, said he became addicted to the drug when it was prescribed to him after a car accident four years ago. ...more

Painkillers invade Victoria streets

From the Victoria (BC) Times Colonist:
An increasing number of Victoria drug dealers are selling prescription painkillers -- sometimes referred to as hillbilly heroin -- on the streets, pushing the city toward a troublesome trend already plaguing major Canadian cities.

"I would term it as the evolution of the drug use in Victoria," said Const. Conor King, a drug expert. "What we're seeing is people who are heroin and cocaine dealers are becoming prescription drug dealers as well."

Those dealers sell Dilaudid, OxyContin and morphine sulphate -- opium-based painkillers from the same drug class as heroin. OxyContin's street name is "hillbilly heroin" because its abuse started mainly in rural areas where heroin was unavailable. Now it has supplanted heroin as the dominant drug in urban centres. ...more

Court fines OxyContin maker $634M US

From CBC News:
The maker of the narcotic painkiller OxyContin and three executives pleaded guilty Thursday to making false claims about the drug's risk of addiction, a U.S. federal prosecutor and the company said.

Purdue Pharma L.P pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to felony misbranding of OxyContin with the intent to defraud. The company's president, chief lawyer and former chief medical officer also pleaded guilty to charges of misbranding – a crime of mislabelling, fraudulently promoting or marketing a drug for an unapproved use.

"With its OxyContin, Purdue unleashed a highly abusable, addictive and potentially dangerous drug on an unsuspecting and unknowing public," U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said in a release. ...more