Pubdate: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 Source: Sudbury Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2005 The Sudbury Star Contact: http://www.thesudburystar.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/608 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) PRESCRIPTIONS FOR CHANGE Oxycodone Has Never Been More Available Than It Is Right Now There's a new drug of choice for Northern Ontario teenagers, one that should send shivers down the spines of every parent. Oxycodone, often sold over the counter as OxyContin, percocet or percodan, is a semi-synthetic opiod prescribed for pain relief. It is highly addictive and very destructive, much like heroin -- but it's much cheaper. It's also rampant in Greater Sudbury, an OxyContin/Narcotic Abuse Task force reported on Monday. The principal reason oxycodone is cheap is because it's readily available in pharmacies. All you need is a prescription and drug pushers and addicts have found a number of creative ways to obtain them. Many make the rounds of doctors and medical clinics with the same symptoms and get several copies of the same prescription. Others, the report says, have begun to intimidate and harass doctors into writing prescriptions, and into writing them for more than the standard month's worth of dosages. As a result, oxycodone has never been more available than it is right now. In fact, local pharmacists report prescriptions of oxycodone products now exceeds the prescription of Tylenol 3 medication as painkillers by a factor of three to one. And once prescribed, the drug is as good as in the hands of someone -- perhaps teenagers -- addicted to it. So what to do about it? The task force will release a series of recommendations in the future. In the meantime, policy makers need not wait. Many of the problems the task force highlighted have been well-documented for years. In fact, many of the challenges in dealing with prescription drug addictions were identified by the Coroner's inquest into the death of Kimberly Rogers almost four years ago. Rogers died of an overdose of prescribed painkillers. Several months worth of illegally-obtained prescriptions were found in her apartment. Among the 14 recommendations made by the inquest jury, five were simple but common sense changes to the way pharmaceuticals are dispensed in Ontario designed to prevent abuses. In particular, the jury recommended the province set up an Internet database that would permit all pharmacies to access a patient's drug dispensing records from other pharmacies, as well as to potentially alert pharmacies of a patient's past attempts to forge prescriptions. Such a system could be modelled on British Columbia's PharmaNet system that uses a patient's government issued health card to store and track relevant information. In addition, pharmacists should be required to notify the prescribing physician of any attempts by the patient to alter or falsify a prescription. A customer who does would immediately be flagged for intervention, either by police or addictions counsellors, as the case warrants. In fact, many of the recommendations had little to do with Rogers' case history, but jurors were so struck by how simple and common it is to illegally obtain prescription drugs that it recommended these measures anyway. Despite this, the provincial government has not acted on any of the jury's recommendations regarding dispensing prescription drugs. In the meantime, Ontario teenagers are dying of oxycodone abuse. Parents have good reason to worry. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman