|
Post Group: Newbie
Posts: 15
Status:  |
Oxycontin
When OxyContin was introduced by Purdue Pharma in 1995, doctors welcomed it enthusiastically. When used properly, OxyContin releases timed doses of the synthetic opiate oxycodone. This time-release mechanism meant that OxyContin, unlike earlier narcotic pain relievers, could treat serious pain for up to 12 hours without serious side effects. But addicts soon learned that by crushing the pills and then snorting or injecting the drug, they could circumvent the pill's time-release safeguard to get a powerful high. Although a handful of doctors have been prosecuted in the last few years in connection with OxyContin overdoses, according to Professor Ann Alpers: "Detailed examination of these cases illustrates that fear of criminal liability or investigation should not deter physicians or nurses from aggressively using opioid analgesics to manage terminal pain, provided that pain has been carefully assessed and treated and communication with families and involved professional caregivers is thorough." Ann Alpers, Criminal Act or Palliative Care? Prosecutions Involving the Care of the Dying, 26 J. LAW MED. & ETHICS 308, 310, 326 (1998).
"Although heroin and OxyContin have a similar unhappy effect on the lives of people addicted to them, there is a critical and simple difference between the two: heroin is illegal; OxyContin, when used as directed, is legal. More than that: the pill is government-approved.… This fact has meant a major conceptual shift for law-enforcement officials, who are used to combating narcotics produced by international drug lords, not international corporations. Terry Woodworth, the deputy director of the D.E.A.'s office of diversion control, says the spread of OxyContin has posed a challenge to the D.E.A.'s traditional methods: "Instead of using the normal law-enforcement techniques -- like going to the source and attempting to eradicate or destroy the criminal organization producing the drug and immobilize its distribution networks and seize all its assets -- you have a very different situation in a legitimate industry, in that your manufacture and distribution is legal."
(Source The Alchemy of OxyContin: From Pain Relief to Drug Addiction, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE at 32, July 29, 2001 )
|
