Pubdate: Fri,  5 Apr 2002
Source: Loudoun Times-Mirror (VA)
Copyright: 2002 Times Community Newspapers
Contact:  http://loudountimes.com/
Feedback: 
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Author: Jon Echtenkamp
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin)

SHERIFF REVEALS OXYCONTIN LINK TO HOMICIDE

Sheriff Steve Simpson dropped a bombshell last week when he revealed 
for the first time that the controversial prescription painkiller 
OxyContin was stolen last year during a homicide that remains 
unsolved. Simpson's admission came during a meeting at county hall 
convened by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-10th District) to discuss the 
dangers of the illegal use of OxyContin in light of several recent 
armed robberies where OxyContin was stolen from local pharmacies.

OxyContin is an opium-based painkiller related to heroin and morphine 
that is manufactured by Purdue Pharma in time-release pill form. 
Although it is a powerful prescription painkiller for treatment of 
chronic, severe pain, the drug also has gained popularity among 
abusers who crush the pills into powder, defeating the time-release 
mechanism, and then snort or inject it for an immediate, highly 
addictive high.

Abuse of the drug has devastated entire communities in southwest 
Virginia and other areas of Appalachia, Wolf said, where robberies, 
overdose deaths and homicides associated with its use have become 
commonplace.

"It's kind of scary," Simpson said, noting those problems could 
spread here "if we don't get real aggressive real quickly."

Simpson said there have been two cases of prescription fraud 
associated with OxyContin in the last year and three robberies, which 
occurred at pharmacies in Sterling in January and February. A Reston 
man has been arrested in connection with one of those robberies.

Simpson's remark about the theft of OxyContin during an unsolved 
homicide was a reference to the May 21 killing of Patrick B. 
Hornbaker, who was found shot to death at his home off Route 9 near 
the West Virginia border. Hornbaker had received treatment for 
chronic pain since he was severely injured in a police pursuit years 
earlier.

Authorities had privately conceded Hornbaker had been using 
OxyContin, but had never before admitted that the drug was stolen 
from the house during the killing. Simpson's admission raised the 
possibility that a drug abuser's interest in obtaining the OxyContin 
may have been the motive behind the killing, and the possibility that 
the problems associated with OxyContin are more dire here than 
previously believed.

Wolf, who held a Congressional hearing on the illegal use of the drug 
in December, said controlling the spread of its abuse is the 
priority. Wolf's subcommittee has a spending bill that directs the 
Drug Enforcement Administration to develop a coordinated strategy 
addressing the drug's illegal abuse. The bill also authorizes $2 
million for states to develop prescription drug monitoring programs 
to track doctor, pharmacy and patient information as a means to 
squelch illegal practices.

"We don't want this to come to this region," Wolf said of the 
problems. "We want to keep it from spreading ... , and we want to 
wipe it out."

Drug Enforcement Administration officials at the meeting talked of 
the challenges OxyContin poses when compared to other prescription 
drugs that use the same active ingredient.

Percoset and Percodan, for instance, contain about 5 or 10 mg of the 
active ingredient oxycodone, and mix it with aspirin or acetaminophin 
that can cause liver problems in abusers, the officials said. 
OxyContin, however, contains up to 80 mg of oxycodone with no 
diluting aspirin or acetaminophen. Purdue Pharma even distributed the 
drug in a 160 mg form in summer 2000, a formulation it has since 
withdrawn.

Thus, officials said, an abuser intent on using OxyContin could get a 
dose of the heroin-like oxycodone up to 16 times stronger than what 
they might get from abusing Percoset or Percodan.

Purdue's sales of OxyContin topped $1 billion in 2000, with more than 
two million prescriptions, DEA officials said.

Pharmacy thefts have been a problem nationally. In Boston, robbers 
held nursing home residents and staff at bay while they collected 
OxyContin. In Maine, abusers have altered prescription pads, writing 
in OxyContin in place of other medicines prescribed by doctors.

In Mexico in October, nine armed robbers stole 900,000 OxyContin 
pills. "We're not quite sure where they ended up after that," said 
one DEA official.

Elsewhere, even doctors have been implicated in illegally or 
improperly prescribing the drug to abusers. A Florida doctor was 
convicted last week of manslaughter in the deaths of four patients 
who died from OxyContin overdoses, the first time a doctor has been 
found guilty of manslaughter or murder in an OxyContin death.

Wolf said Purdue is working on a "narcotic antagonist" that will 
disable the drug's potency if an abuser tries to crush the pills into 
powder, but the company has not announced any timetable for when such 
a technology might be incorporated into the pills.

If OxyContin, when abused, shares the potential addictive properties 
of other opium-based products such as heroin, its availability 
increases the challenges for authorities. Unlike heroin, which is 
typically smuggled into the country and must be purchased in 
proverbial dark alleys, OxyContin is manufactured here, marketed to 
family physicians and distributed in neighborhood pharmacies.

Wolf sent the General Accounting Office a letter in December 
requesting a probe of the company's marketing practices for the drug. 
He asked in the letter:

"Did the Food and Drug Administration mis-classify this powerful 
narcotic for moderate to severe pain when it should have been limited 
to treating chronic, severe pain?... Did the company market this drug 
as a more effective replacement for other less addictive drugs? Is 
there a direct correlation between the marketing strategies of the 
drug and its excessive abuse?"
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MAP posted-by: Josh