Pubdate: Fri, 28 May 2004 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2004 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Author: Lee Mueller Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) STOLEN DRUGS NOT GENERIC OXYCONTIN Shipment, Van Taken Near Pikeville PIKEVILLE - Investigators said yesterday that drugs stolen from a mini-storage unit near Pikeville in April did not contain generic OxyContin, a powerful painkiller that an Eastern Kentucky drug task force says is already being sold on the black market. Kentucky State Police Detective Eddie Crum said a Lexington-based wholesaler, D&K Health Care Resources, has told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency there was no generic OxyContin in the drug shipment taken April 29 from Nanack Inc.'s storage unit on Cowpen Road near U.S. 23. Both Crum and Dan Smoot, chief law enforcement officer for UNITE, a federally funded anti-drug task force, said last week that investigators had been tipped that the generic OxyContin circulating in the mountain region might have been a stolen shipment intended for local pharmacies. "It looked like a good lead to start with, but it turned out to be a dead end for us," Crum said. Smoot and Crum said reports of drug dealers selling the generic painkiller have been popping up in several communities east of Lexington. "It appears most of them are coming from Ohio and Indiana," Smoot said. Neither Floyd Fields of Nanack, Inc., nor Kevin Royse, operations manager for D&K, could be reached for comment yesterday. OxyContin is a long-lasting, time-release drug containing oxycodone that is generally prescribed for patients suffering from chronic pain. When swallowed whole, it can provide up to 12 hours of pain relief. When crushed, however, it can be injected or snorted, producing a potentially lethal high. More than 100 deaths have been linked to overdoses of the drug. Two Pennsylvania-based pharmaceutical companies, Endo of Chadds Ford, and Teva, an Israeli-owned company with a U.S. subsidiary in North Wales, have received approval to sell 80 milligram generic OxyContin tablets. Purdue Pharma, the company that created the drug, has a federal patent lawsuit pending. Meanwhile, Endo has said it will not market its product until the suit is settled, but Teva has begun marketing its version. Crum expressed relief that the generic "didn't come from this load," but said the Pikeville theft is still under investigation. An armored van out of Lexington delivered a load of Schedule II narcotics to Pikeville on April 29, Crum said. The plan was for the van and drugs to stay in storage for about two hours until they could be picked up by other couriers and shipped to pharmacies, he said. Meantime, someone stole the van and drugs, although police later located the van. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom