OxyContin Abusers Strain ERs
Aug. 20 -- Thwarted at pharmacies and doctors' offices, addicts and others who want the powerful painkiller OxyContin are straining already strapped emergency rooms in their hunt for the narcotic, doctors and other experts say.
And, they say, some of the drug abusers go to extraordinary lengths to convince doctors they are legitimate patients in need of the drug, sometimes even endangering those doctors, and ultimately even keeping legitimate patients from getting it.
"We're seeing a lot more patients coming in to the ER actually asking for OxyContin, and many times demanding it," says Dr. Larry Alexander, medical director of the emergency department at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, Fla., near Orlando. "We're beginning to see it more routinely because they can't get it on the street or the pharmacy."
In just six years on the market, OxyContin has become the No.1 selling brand-name prescription painkiller, and has a reputation for being easily and frequently abused. Federal officials say no prescription drug in the last 20 years has been so widely abused so soon after its release.
OxyContin, often known as "Oxy," is the latest in a long line of "hot" drugs illegitimate users have sought through the ER. Vicodin was the drug du jour a few years ago, and before that it was methadone.
While no hard figures are available on the degree of abuse, ER doctors in urban, suburban and more rural locales all told ABCNEWS in private e-mails and in interviews of a sense of siege, and said the demand for OxyContin was having a significant impact on their work.
Nationwide, a rash of thefts (see related stories) has prompted several drug-store chains and pain centers to stop selling the drug and post "no Oxy" signs in windows. The Drug Enforcement Agency has asked the drug's manufacturer to limit the drug's availability to pain specialists only.
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