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." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin