Pubdate: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) 9-4e8d-99ca-1a9b16ae0bd5 Copyright: 2004 Times Colonist Contact: http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 Author: Veronique Mandal, CanWest News Services Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) 'HILLBILLY HEROIN' USE SOARS IN CANADA Doctors prescribing opiate-based drugs at rapidly growing rate WINDSOR -- In thousands of Canadian medicine cabinets, there's a junkie waiting to happen. Doctors are prescribing opiate-based painkillers -- offering a high the rival of heroin -- at a rapidly growing rate, despite inadequate safeguards against addiction, say police and substance abuse counsellors. Prescriptions for OxyContin, the purest form of the opiate oxycodone, increased five-fold between 2000 and 2003, and in Ontario alone, according to the private health-information company IMS Health, sales increased 600 per cent in the four-year period ending in May. With women particularly at risk, drugs containing oxycodone are being abused so widely that Canada's chief coroners are preparing to issue a national alert this fall. The drug is responsible for at least 250 overdose deaths in Ontario since 1998 and hundreds more nationwide, the coroners say. Because there is no central tracking system in the nation's pharmacies, abusers can stockpile "oxy" or "hillbilly heroin" by hopping from doctors' offices to clinics and hospital emergency rooms, duping physicians into writing prescriptions and having them filled at an assortment of drug stores without detection. "In the end I didn't care," said Penny Quinlan, a Windsor-area woman who pleaded guilty to a massive double-doctoring scheme in which 15 physicians prescribed her more than 3,000 oxy pills. "No one doing it cares because you have to have the drug. When you know that all you have to do is go into a doctor's office, of course you'll do it. "They ask if you've been to another doctor but of course any junkie will lie, and most doctors never call other doctors to verify." Produced by the Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma LP, OxyContin hit the Canadian market in 1997. According to IMS, Canadian pharmacies dispensed close to 2.8 million prescriptions of all products containing oxycodone in the 12 months ending in May, up from just under 1.4 million in 2000. OxyContin was hailed as a godsend for cancer patients and others suffering long-term chronic pain, thanks to its 12-hour release mechanism, which significantly reduced dosages. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has accused Purdue of "overly aggressive" marketing of OxyContin, and the company faces about 300 lawsuits alleging improper promotion of the drug. Only British Columbia and Alberta have their pharmacies connected on a centralized drug-monitoring system to help pharmacists identify double-doctoring. The Canadian Pharmacy Association is frustrated at the lack of a national registry. Members say if the government had $1 billion for a gun registry, there should be $50 million available to track prescription drugs. "The federal government passed monitoring of drugs off to the provinces, so the process is hit-and-miss," said association president George Murray, owner of the Tantramar Pharmacy in Sackville, N.B. "Here in New Brunswick there's no way to tell where people are going on the same day or how many pharmacies they're hitting. Alberta and B.C. have the best systems." Murray said the Atlantic provinces have seen a 400-per-cent increase in the use of oxy drugs, particularly OxyContin. Its abuse has led to pharmacy break-ins and home invasions of seniors. Abusers who double-doctor using the Ontario Drug Benefit (ODB)plan, which pays for medications for seniors and social assistance recipients, are stealing from all taxpayers, said Det. Sgt. Lee Woodman of the OPP's drug enforcement section. "When people on welfare are double-doctoring and the ODB plan is paying, it comes out of all our pockets. There is certainly a case to be made for having drug information on a drug card. If the public is paying, the privacy issue goes out the window," said Woodman, who supports a central registry for pharmacies. "It's odd to me in the face of so much double-doctoring going on that there is no real system in place to prevent it. Pharmacies need to be better linked." - --- MAP posted-by: Josh