OxyContin Panel Seeks Tougher Tracking
Jul 14, 2006
By: Phil McKenna
The Boston Globe
Key report targets abusers, doctors
A state commission called yesterday for more aggressive tracking of people who abuse addictive painkillers and the doctors who prescribe them.
The OxyContin Commission, established by the Legislature in 2004 to combat prescription abuse, also called for more cooperation among state officials, regulators, and law enforcement officials, as well as education for teachers and parents, safer storage of prescription drugs, and a statewide disposal program for unused pills.
Abuse of OxyContin and other prescription drugs was responsible for a 600 percent increase in opioid-related deaths in Massachusetts between 1990 and 2003, particularly among teenagers and young adults. Opioids are synthetic drugs that have a chemical structure similar to opium.
“It used to be that years ago we raided parents’ liquor cabinets for liquor,” Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, the commission chairman, said in an interview after the group released its final report. “Now kids are raiding parents’ medicine cabinets for drugs.”
Abuse of painkillers occurs throughout the state, but it is especially prevalent in suburban neighborhoods where young people can afford the drugs, Koutoujian said.
This “has been identified as a middle-class drug,” Koutoujian said, adding that it has hit Lynn, Greater Somerville, and the South Shore particularly hard. “I’m talking about blocks and blocks of areas that have a tremendously high rate of children abusing prescription drugs.”
The 11- member committee recommended closer monitoring of patients who receive and fill multiple prescriptions at multiple doctors’ offices and pharmacies and of doctors or pharmacists suspected of knowingly supplying addicts’ drugs.
“There has been frustration by [regulators] and by law enforcement that this information is out there, but it hasn’t been analyzed nor shared,” said Koutoujian, a Democrat whose district covers Newton, Waltham, and Watertown. “We know that other states are more actively utilizing this information, and Massachusetts needs to do this.”
OxyContin, an opioid-based painkiller, has been the main source of prescription drug abuse, according to the report. When used correctly, the drug slowly releases medication into the bloodstream, allowing patients suffering from chronic pain to function normally and nearly pain-free. Abusers of the drug, however, crush and snort the tablet, chew it, or dissolve it in water and inject the solution for an immediate heroin-like high.
Addicts often start with prescription drugs such as OxyContin, which, on the street, costs approximately $80 for one 80 mg pill , but eventually turn to less expensive heroin or other street drugs when they can no longer afford the medication.
“No one has stopped at OxyContin,” Koutoujian said. “They become full-blown heroin addicts.”
Michael Botticelli , assistant commissioner for substance abuse services at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and a member of the OxyContin Commission, said his department is already working on the recommendations.
“It really validates much of the work that has already been going on at the Department of Public Health for the past year,” Botticelli said, citing a recent campaign against OxyContin abuse and ongoing efforts to enhance the prescription drug monitoring program.
