Pubdate: Sun, 03 Apr 2005
Source: Missoulian (MT)
Copyright: 2005 Missoulian
Contact:  http://www.missoulian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/720
Author: Colin McDonald, Missoulian staff
Note: Only prints letters from within its print circulation area
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/rush+limbaugh

ONE BAD CHOICE KILLED 19-YEAR-OLD

The view from Timothy Lawhorn's downtown Missoula dental office would
be hard to improve.

From the two dentist chairs perched in front of the big glass
windowpanes, patients can see straight down the Bitterroot Valley. In
the evening, Lolo Peak is outlined by the setting sun, Mount Sentinel
glows in refracted light and the valley between is shrouded in mist.

Lawhorn once dreamed of passing on his dental practice - and the view
out his office windows - to his oldest daughter, Jessica.

On the office wall are a series of framed studio photographs of his
two daughters. They begin when the girls were babies, dressed in
matching outfits. Every few years, there came another portrait of the
girls, who were two years apart.

As they entered their teenage years, the girls no longer wore matching
outfits for the portraits, but still posed and smiled for the camera,
genuine in their affection for one another.

Lawhorn dreamed of having scores of pictures. He looked forward to
seeing the photos lined up, documenting the girls' progression through
life.

"I wanted to have them until they we 64," he said. "I was going to
cover the wall with them - now there is only going to be one of them."

In the early hours of Sunday, March 20, 19-year-old Jessica Fay
Lawhorn took a portion of an OxyContin pill while hanging out with a
girlfriend. Less than 12 hours later, she was dead.

"Her decision made her younger sister an only child," her dad said in
an interview last week.

From her autopsy, state medical examiner Dr. Gary Dale determined that
Lawhorn died of a drug overdose. A toxicology test showed a lethal
quantity of the narcotic painkiller in her bloodstream.

"She loved jewelry, flowers, photography, writing poetry, movies,
fashion and generally having a good time," Jessica's little sister,
Katie, wrote in her obituary. "In Jessica lived such a fire that
everyone and everything around her was completely consumed."

While a death caused by OxyContin is rare in Missoula, abuse of the
painkiller is not. Jessica's death, authorities said, is just the
latest example of the prevalence and cost of Missoula's drug problems.

"Am I surprised a 19-year-old died from a drug overdose?" asked Sgt.
Scott Brodie of the Missoula Police Department's High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area task force. "No.

This 19-year-old girl will probably not be the only drug fatality in
Missoula this year. We average five to six overdoses a year."

Missoula has a drug problem, Brodie said, and abuse of OxyContin has
been near the top of the list in recent years.

"We have seen a lot of people in the medical community getting
hooked," he said. The problem: A number of nurses and patients
legitimately received prescriptions for OxyContin, then became
addicted and started abusing the drug.

"You get legitimate hurt people getting hooked," Brodie said. "They
probably did not intend to become a felon."

Because any use of a drug other than as prescribed by a physician - or
any alteration of a prescription - is a felony, Brodie said OxyContin
became a regular issue for his detectives several years ago.

Since then, cooperation with area doctors has helped to decrease
illegal use of the drug - to reduce, but not eliminate, the problem.
And the danger, he said, is as great as ever.

When Brodie talks to students about the dangers of drugs, he
emphasizes that the first time they take an opiate like heroin, even
if the dose is small, it can kill them.

"If you take too much, it just turns your heart off," he said. "Like a
switch."

OxyContin is also an opiate and works the same way.

Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh brought the painkiller to national
attention in 2003, when he was prosecuted by the state of Florida for
allegedly taking up to 30 pills a day. That amount was hundreds of
times over the recommended dosage and would kill most people.

But Limbaugh is a large man and had been taking the pills for years.
He paid a fine, went to rehab and in a matter of weeks was back on the
air.

By contrast, Jessica Lawhorn took only a portion of one pill before
she died.

Dr. Warren Guffin, director of St. Patrick Hospital's emergency
department, was not surprised that a young person could die after
taking a small amount of OxyContin.

He explained that Jessica's cells were "naive," having never before
dealt with such a powerful narcotic. Even though she drank alcohol and
smoked cigarettes, her cells would have had a very low tolerance for
the drug.

It takes several months to build up a tolerance for OxyContin, Guffin
said. And Jessica was not a regular user of the drug, her father said;
it may have been her first time.

Guffin said OxyContin is popular as a recreational drug because it is
so powerful. "We see a lot of people seeking it," he said. "It seems
to have a greater euphoric effect, you get the high."

OxyContin is designed to be long-lasting. In prescription form, it is
supposed to be swallowed whole and then slowly break down over a
12-hour period.

But recreational users, like Jessica, often take pills after the outer
shell has been dissolved, or after crushing the pill into a powder so
it will have a faster and greater effect. The powder can be snorted or
dissolved in water and injected straight into the bloodstream.

Twenty-four-year-old Eric Jacobson, who allegedly sold two OxyContin
pills to Jessica for $100, has been charged by the Missoula County
attorney with distribution of dangerous drugs. According to police, he
allegedly dissolved the outer shell of the pills before giving them to
Jessica.

OxyContin is an especially difficult challenge for ER doctors, Guffin
said.

Physicians can administer drugs to neutralize OxyContin, but because
they often must do so without knowing when the drug was taken, the
OxyContin can outlast the neutralizing medication.

So a patient can be doing fine for several hours and then their
condition can take a sudden downturn, Guffin said. The OxyContin's
effects have returned full-force.

Because of OxyContin's long-lasting effects and the ease with which
patients become addicted to the drug, Guffin no longer uses it as a
painkiller in his emergency room.

The ER is not in the business of treating long-term pain, he said. So
he can use other drugs that are not as long-lasting but are still
effective in dealing with pain - and don't have so many potential
complications.

Lawhorn and his daughter talked about the dangers of drug use and
abuse, he said. He had seen the effect drugs could have on a life. He
had seen the power of addiction.

When Jessica dropped out after her first semester in the University of
Montana's pre-dental program, her father was nervous. But Jessica had
a plan, he said. This was her time to party. She would get the
partying out of the way first, then go back to school ready to focus
on her studies.

Lawhorn accepted his daughter's decision. Jessica had always forged
her own path.

He said he would not help her financially until she was ready to go
back to school. There was talk of her taking classes during summer
session.

Lawhorn knew and took pride that his daughter wanted to live life to
the fullest and have a good time. She was an adult, making her own
decisions.

He also knew that Jessica drank and smoked. He knew she would have
been one of the first people out on the dance floor and probably one
of the first to use a beer bong at a party, he said.

"She just wanted to have a good time," he said. "Get a little
buzz."

So the father and daughter talked about the dangers of addiction and
overdose. But the dangers from a single small dose of a pharmaceutical
drug was not something he thought to talk about.

Jessica Lawhorn's death was not the result of a three-day drug binge,
her father said. She did not die from some drug manufactured in a
basement or smuggled in from a foreign country. She just took one
little pill.

"Here was a young, vivacious woman, with all the potential anyone
could have," he said. "One choice killed her."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin